New 12v setup

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Graekynn, could you post up what you actually have, or what you think you will be purchasing.


Also, can you post up how you intend to use your setup. EG, weekends away, or a long trip around Australia and so on?


Are you planning on stopping in one place at a time for long periods of free camping or moving camp every day or so?


These different uses can be addressed with different setups.


I am pretty sure I can give you some options that are much cheaper to setup and will give you far, FAR better results.

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At the moment I have the Manager 30 BMS, a fridge and a 150w monocrystalline solar panel. I'm currently designing a drawer/storage system and am still working out where I want things to live. The best description I can give at this stage is that it will be a single drawer system with a flat floor about the height of the wheel 'arches'. An engel 60L fridge, and possibly the auxiliary battery, will be located behind the passenger seat and will be accessed via the gullwing. The drivers side will be a little more complex as I'm planning to have 2 storage boxes in front of the gullwing, and behind that a vertical bay to store the solar panel. Somewhere in this area, perhaps just inside the rear door I will be mounting all the necessary 12v stuff (manager 30 and control panel, fuses, switches for fridge/lighting etc.).

At the moment I get away for a few days at a time to semi-remote areas, but am looking to extend that more and more as time goes on. Basically would like a setup that can cater for the longer trips (a week or so between towns) as well as the long weekend stuff. My trips lately have been a tear down each day and move to a new location, but want the capacity to stay somewhere for atleast a few days if I wanted.

Wow!!! for the price of the Manager30 you could have done the entire system [bigsmile]

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Originally Posted by Tombie

Wow!!! for the price of the Manager30 you could have done the entire system [bigsmile]

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Agreed they're at the higher end of the scale, but I got it for a really good price. It also future proofs me for if I decide to tow a camper trailer and end up with multiple batteries etc.

Hi again Greakynn, what size battery do you have now, and how large a battery capacity are you considering?

I haven't sourced a battery as yet as I'm still figuring out how much space I have for it. Was planning on starting with ~100Ah and see how long that lasts me. Main power users are the fridge (reported 0.5 to 4.2A load), mobile device charging i.e. phones and tablet and LED strip lighting for awning, tent and interior of car.

Hi Graekynn, and the following is just a SUGGESTION.


Because you have a Defender, you will have at least ( from memory ) a 110 amps alternator, and this can give you some pretty fast recharging capabilities.


Again, this is just a suggestion. If you hold off installing the BMS, and if you used one of my DT90 isolators, your would cover most of what you need, for a lot less outlay.


You could mount an Optima D34 Yellowtop 55Ah battery under the seat, in with your cranking battery. You can also fit the DT90 isolator there as well and this will give you a total usable battery capacity of around 75 to 80Ah.


This for a start would be a big space saver yet this setup would give you around the same amount of usable battery capacity that a 100Ah battery in the rear would give you.


The major difference is that if you used the 80Ah available with a 100Ah battery and use that 30 amp DC/DC unit to recharge the 100Ah battery, you would need to drive constantly for about 3.5 to 4 hours to get the 100Ah battery back up around 95% SoC. Also note, if you are running a fridge off the battery being charged by a DC/DC device, your drive time will need to be even longer.


Whereas with the combination of your cranking battery, the Optima D34 and the DT90, you could replace the same amount of used battery capacity in less that 1.5 hours of constant driving. If you are powering a fridge off the auxiliary battery, then you will only need a few MINUTES more of drive time to get the batteries up around the 95% SoC.


Next, if you are mounting your solar panel on top of your defender, while you would need a separate solar regulator, you will then have have an additional charging source while driving. You actually loose this additional charging source when using any DC/DC device.


With a DT90 setup, you will need to get a separate 240vac battery charger, but this would best be a 5 to 10 amp battery charger, not a 30 amp charger. A smaller charger is far better for your batteries.


Also, with a DT90 setup, when you are stopped and using either ( or both at the same time ) the solar or the battery charger, you can be charging both batteries at the same time. With a DC/DC devise, you are limited to one or the other power source and most will not charge your cranking battery.


Another major advantage of the DT90 is that it not only protects your cranking battery, which a DC/DC device also does if wired correctly, but the DT90 also protects your auxiliary battery from being over discharged and damaged, something DC/DC devices can not do.


The primary advantage here is that your Defender has a good sized alternator and its size means there is no advantage to using any for of DC/DC device, and these devices will actually retard your recharging capability in a number of ways.


BTW, you say the DC/DC device will further proof, you if you get a camper trailer. It unfortunately does not. You will actually need to either move your existing DC/DC unit to your trailer, or buy a second one specifically for the trailer.


You can not have a DC/DC device mounted in your vehicle and use it to charge a battery in a camper trailer or caravan. A DC/DC device MUST BE located as close as possible to the battery it is charging.


There is lots of glossy hype about what DC/DC devices can do, but the problem is the sellers of these devices deliberately omit the fundamental information required to see if these devices will be of any form of advantage or just an expensive way of undermining what the average alternator can do by itself.


Graekynn, for a fraction of the cost of one of those devices, you could have a far superior setup.

Some interesting points there, Can you PM me some of the details, or a link to the kit you're referring to? Cheers

Hi Graekynn, I have a number of dual battery kits for Defenders, but when I started rebuilding my website 18 or so months ago, I didn't put them and a lot of other info up.

It is way overdue that I put them up so I will try to do so over the weekend, but if you would like to discuss them sooner, please feel free to phone me at any time.

Hi, a couple of lessons from my 130 puma, I have an overhead console with my CB in it and have relocated my electricals from under the drivers seat to a Mulgo Ex Box under the console.

Running cables from the dash to the rest of the vehicle is a bugger of a job, particularly to the ExBox or under the drivers seat. If you need to do it, run multi core cables so that you only need to do it once. The same applies to wiring that travels to the roof.

I put the main 12 volt components such as the traxide dual battery setup in the battery compartment under the passengers seat.

The cables from the roof can be neatly hidden under the plastic covers on the A pillar and routed behind the dash from there.

I put a fuse block behind the dash as a distribution point for 12 volt supply to future installations with a couple of the cores to the overhead console supplied from that block as well

There is also a fuse block in the Ex Box for 12 supply as well.

Regards,
Tote

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Originally Posted by Tote

Hi, a couple of lessons from my 130 puma, I have an overhead console with my CB in it and have relocated my electricals from under the drivers seat to a Mulgo Ex Box under the console.

Running cables from the dash to the rest of the vehicle is a bugger of a job, particularly to the ExBox or under the drivers seat. If you need to do it, run multi core cables so that you only need to do it once. The same applies to wiring that travels to the roof.

I put the main 12 volt components such as the traxide dual battery setup in the battery compartment under the passengers seat.

The cables from the roof can be neatly hidden under the plastic covers on the A pillar and routed behind the dash from there.

I put a fuse block behind the dash as a distribution point for 12 volt supply to future installations with a couple of the cores to the overhead console supplied from that block as well

There is also a fuse block in the Ex Box for 12 supply as well.

Regards,
Tote

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Great writeup Tote, would you by any chance have photos to go along with it?