OllieChristopher
Well-known member
Hi there, Figured I would share my experience of how my system has been holding up and working the last few months. Here is the build portion of my dual battery setup:
expeditionportal.com
Before anything I chose to test everything out right in my driveway to get any bugs out of the system. Good thing I did!
First issue right off was the 12 volt male plug from fridge. I would plug it in and it would slip out losing connection over a few hours when plugged into my solar generator or marine plug in my truck. The fix was pretty simple. I disassembled the plug and bent the "spring" to put less tension on the tip. It now works perfect for stationary use. For traveling I cut the cable behind the plug and installed Anderson connectors.
We had a few 90+ degree days so in the morning I set the fridge temp at -06 degrees F, put it in the back of my truck and filled it with water bottles. Plugged it into the Anderson socket and let it rip! I then deployed my 100 watt solar suitcase and connected it to my Victron 75/15 charge controller.
With cooler setting in the hot sun the water was starting to freeze by noon. By the evening they were close to being frozen around the edges of cooling coils of cooler. Cooler showed about 20 degrees. I moved the center bottles to the sides and frozen ones to middle. By the morning my truck house battery did it's job and was showing 12.4 volts when the cooler kicked in. All the water was frozen solid and cooler was stable at 16 degrees. When I unplugged the cooler the voltage jumped back up to 12.7 - 12.8
Next days test was a disaster!! Same test only using my Jackery solar generator and pass through charging through my truck socket using inverter. At about noon with the sun blazing down, both the inverter and Jackery shut down and quit powering the fridge. Both units were very hot to the touch and the cooler top was pretty hot as well (more from the sun than anything else). I don't blame the products for shutting down. After all I'm testing them in very extreme conditions.
I moved everything to the garage out of the sun and the Jackery worked perfectly. By the evening bottles were starting to freeze. Moved the water around again and let it set overnight plugged into Jackery . Next morning water was frozen solid. Jackery was down to about 90% or so. So the pass through charging works as long as you are in some kind of cover or shade.
My next post will be the field testing.
Dual battery install 05 GMC Sierra with pics
Hi guys I'm new here. Thought I would share some pictures and my procedures for a dual battery install. This is model specific but can cross over to many other makes and models. First a little background. I have been a lurker here for many years. I'm getting to a point in my life to do some...
expeditionportal.com
Before anything I chose to test everything out right in my driveway to get any bugs out of the system. Good thing I did!
First issue right off was the 12 volt male plug from fridge. I would plug it in and it would slip out losing connection over a few hours when plugged into my solar generator or marine plug in my truck. The fix was pretty simple. I disassembled the plug and bent the "spring" to put less tension on the tip. It now works perfect for stationary use. For traveling I cut the cable behind the plug and installed Anderson connectors.
We had a few 90+ degree days so in the morning I set the fridge temp at -06 degrees F, put it in the back of my truck and filled it with water bottles. Plugged it into the Anderson socket and let it rip! I then deployed my 100 watt solar suitcase and connected it to my Victron 75/15 charge controller.
With cooler setting in the hot sun the water was starting to freeze by noon. By the evening they were close to being frozen around the edges of cooling coils of cooler. Cooler showed about 20 degrees. I moved the center bottles to the sides and frozen ones to middle. By the morning my truck house battery did it's job and was showing 12.4 volts when the cooler kicked in. All the water was frozen solid and cooler was stable at 16 degrees. When I unplugged the cooler the voltage jumped back up to 12.7 - 12.8
Next days test was a disaster!! Same test only using my Jackery solar generator and pass through charging through my truck socket using inverter. At about noon with the sun blazing down, both the inverter and Jackery shut down and quit powering the fridge. Both units were very hot to the touch and the cooler top was pretty hot as well (more from the sun than anything else). I don't blame the products for shutting down. After all I'm testing them in very extreme conditions.
I moved everything to the garage out of the sun and the Jackery worked perfectly. By the evening bottles were starting to freeze. Moved the water around again and let it set overnight plugged into Jackery . Next morning water was frozen solid. Jackery was down to about 90% or so. So the pass through charging works as long as you are in some kind of cover or shade.
My next post will be the field testing.