Frontier owners with dual batteries

bigskypylot

Explorer
Will definitely be posting progress on my blog. Going to start with the basics, dual battery and a couple of lights and then work my way up to adding the solar panel, charge controller and other accessories. Whole build as it stands right now is around $1040 including the solar panel.

Nice. I have a Renogy 100W briefcase w/o controller since I use my Yeti 400 with it. It does a great job. Would like to mount a 150 on my vehicle but my RTT makes it kind of hard to do that right now
 

dmwhiteman

Observer
Dual batteries.jpg

Here is my dual (tri) battery setup. Its 2 6v wired in series to obtain 12v. It gets me about 200ah to run the fridge (red plug) and three 12v outlets (top mid and bottom center between the batteries). Right now everything is wired up to a blue seas fuse box. Getting an overhaul in the next couple months when I add the solar panel.
 

Mo4130

Adventurer
The spare is under the bed so no go there. At this point given all that I've seen, I'm probably going to end up with a box in the bed that's mounted there permanently with all the electronics and the 2nd battery in it.

This is basically what my brother and I came up with. Should be good up 400watts of output power by adding more batteries inline.

RyT1mgy.png


I can share a bigger version of the schematic and parts I've narrowed down so far to put this together if anyone's interested. The whole setup is a little overkill with multiple redundancies and safeties but thats why he does what he does lol.

IMG_1206.jpg
That's where I put mine. IMG_0619.jpg
All the way in the front of the bed
IMG_1206.jpg
 

SursOverland

Observer
View attachment 386718

Here is my dual (tri) battery setup. Its 2 6v wired in series to obtain 12v. It gets me about 200ah to run the fridge (red plug) and three 12v outlets (top mid and bottom center between the batteries). Right now everything is wired up to a blue seas fuse box. Getting an overhaul in the next couple months when I add the solar panel.

Do you have another angle of where and how the batteries are mounted? Are they in the engine bay?

View attachment 386795
That's where I put mine. View attachment 386794
All the way in the front of the bed
View attachment 386795


Are both your batteries in the truck bed or is the main in the engine bay and there's 2 additional one's in the truck bed?

Also an unrelated question, how's the dust situation in the canopy? Does it keep things dust free and dry or do you still get dust all over everything?
 

Mo4130

Adventurer
I can take one later today. That box that is open in my second pic faces towards the front of the bed. My starting battery is in my engine bay and my aux battery is in the bed.

Sure lost a little cargo space but its nice having the ability to jump off the batteries in the back.
 

Trikebubble

Adventurer
Does the Frontier have the same engine bay as the Xterra? I think it would. Anyhow, I mounted dual Deka Intimidators in the space where the stock battery used to fit. You have to relocate the power steering reservoir and make good use of all the space, fabricate a dual battery tray, but it's do-able. I've been running this setup for a whole year, with a lot of offroading and it has worked like a charm. I bought a TMax dual battery control to manage the batteries, and I also ran really large gauge positive and negative wires to the back to power the fridge.



Sent from the Mountains
 

Doc187

Observer
Does the Frontier have the same engine bay as the Xterra? I think it would. Anyhow, I mounted dual Deka Intimidators in the space where the stock battery used to fit. You have to relocate the power steering reservoir and make good use of all the space, fabricate a dual battery tray, but it's do-able. I've been running this setup for a whole year, with a lot of offroading and it has worked like a charm. I bought a TMax dual battery control to manage the batteries, and I also ran really large gauge positive and negative wires to the back to power the fridge.



Sent from the Mountains

I'm planning in doing what you did except with a national luna diy kit and a couple of odessey 1400s. What is your power steering res mounted to?
 

Trikebubble

Adventurer
I'm planning in doing what you did except with a national luna diy kit and a couple of odessey 1400s. What is your power steering res mounted to?
I reused the stick bracket, and dabbed up another little bracket and found a few places to bolt it in.

Sent from the Mountains
 

davidshourd

Adventurer
I ran a dual battery set up in my frontier where the second battery was located behind the drivers seat. truck was just a king cab and I had removed the back jump seats and just made some brackets/storage areas. the battery was in a sealed plastic ammo can, and was of course a sealed battery too. I had a switch in the cab that I could flip that would combine the batteries, otherwise they were always isolated using a warn battery isolator that allowed the battery to still get charge when the truck was running but isolated it until I hit a switch. worked great for winching or if I was silly enough to leave the radio and lights on at camp for too long.
 

SursOverland

Observer
You have any pix? What's the battery stored in?
I havent got around to building mine yet. Waiting on my brother to make additional revisions to the schematic he had originally drawn up.
 

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