Adding 2nd battery, what do i need

[rammie 10+ year member]

For 01 Chevy Tahoe I plan on having a 2nd battery for running system and lights, possibly air compressor and winch in the future. Not matching batteries, just adding a deep cycle. I need to know what is involved, I think I will be having my installer do this project but I'd like to get the full scoop. If someone who has done this or has a similar set up could give me a brief walk-through that would be perfect, thanks

P.S. Ive read the articles on it, I would like to have real world take on this, thx

Click to read more...

 

[lincolnls 10+ year member]

run + from front battery to positive of rear batter, and - of fron battery to - of rear battery.

if you play your stereo with the car off then just put an isolator in line of the + wire so that when you shut the car off your running only on the rear battery

its as easy as that, o yea use 0 guage wire, DONT sjimp here, realisticall you should run 2 runs of + and 2 runs of - to lower the resistance down that way you have easy current transfer and you lose less to the rear battery

 

[dirtymax]

i added a second battery to my truck a while back and all i did was hook the negatives together and the positives together. works great. they are both deep cycle's.

 

[BaseSteala112 10+ year member]

Your gonna need 1/0 power and ground wires, 2 fuse holders and 2 fuses. Run the power wire from the first battery to the new battery and fuse it at both ends. Then you can either ground the new battery to the chassis in the rear, or you can run the wire to the front battery. The choice is yours.

 

[rammie 10+ year member]

thanks guys, that seems easy enough. Ive heard of battery drain if there is no isolator used, any experience with this? For my setup Id like one battery as my starting/vehicle use batt, and the other for the addons, so that they would be separate. And yeah I would run the system with the truck off for extended time.

Under 1000 total watts though.

 

[lincolnls 10+ year member]

thanks guys, that seems easy enough. Ive heard of battery drain if there is no isolator used, any experience with this? For my setup Id like one battery as my starting/vehicle use batt, and the other for the addons, so that they would be separate. And yeah I would run the system with the truck off for extended time.
Under 1000 total watts though.

if thats all the power you are runng dont worry about an isolator then, unless you run the stereo with the car off for a good period of time, otherwise there is no need for the isolator

 

[lincolnls 10+ year member]

opps didnt read the thread correctly since you are going to run the stereo with the car off hen get an isolator so that after bumping for a while the truck will still lstart

 

[knukonceptz 10+ year member]

Isolators = bad for audio use, they cause .4V loss just from powering them. The more reserve power you have (ie large batteries) the harder it will be to drop below 12.5V Anything above is coming from the ALT, there is some charge above 12.5 in the batteries, but more of a surface charge then anything.

As mentioned you will need 1/0 and two inline fuse holders (one at each end) to safely wire the system