My Dual Battery Setup

[ausbran]

I'm putting an auxiliary battery in my engine compartment purely for camping pleasures.
I'm just looking for general feedback on my setup and what people think. It is simple, but should be all that I need.

I will be running 4AWG wire from the AUX battery in the engine compartment to the fusebox (safetyhub 150) in the truck bed. Is 4 AWG wire sufficient for my setup? I'll be running a 400w inverter from my fusebox as well as a couple small accessories (fan, LED bar, water pump.) All of the details are within the diagram. The 400w inverter will be hooked up to one of the safetyhub 150's high amp AMI fuse ports which are rated for up to 200 amps. I'll fuse it with a 35amp fuse (or should I go higher?)

I'm just unsure of how the Safetyhub 150 works. Why is it able to work without having to run a negative cable from a port on it to the chassis of the truck? How does this work?

Diagram attached here.

 

[JPaul]

Might be ok, but you'll want to check the surge capacity of the inverter. 400 watts at 80% efficiency needs about 38 or so amps at full power, and surge can be double that so it'll need to handle about 75 amps for a moment when pushing it.

4 gauge might be OK with your distances but if you are going to be running several things at once you should move up to 2 gauge. The less voltage drop you can have the more efficient everything will be since you won'tbe wasting energy heating the wire.

As for the hookup from the fuseblock to the inverter, I'd go with at least 10 gauge at a minimum, preferably 8 to 6 gauge. 12 gauge is just a bit too small when it is running at full power.

It's better to have too big of wiring than too small. My setup is very over engineered for my current needs (3/0 to the rear for the main positive cable with 2/0 negative cables to the frame) but it also means I only had to run the cables once. With how much of a pain it was to run the cable, that was a large driving factor for oversizing it. My setup can handle about 300 amps with less than 5% voltage drop. I will never need to redo the wiring again unless it becomes damaged (which is extremely unlikely). I'm not saying you need to go that extreme though. A rear or trailer winch is a real future possibility for me though, hence the designed capacity.

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