Rodeo RA dual battery system

Pat and Cheryl,

Here's a copy of something I posted ages ago (post 15195)

It's still working brilliantly after 9 months and I've also added a solar panel.

"I've got a great setup. It was installed by Chris at Battery World, Wantirna, Vic. He put a smart solenoid under the bonnet, ran 140 amp cable along the chassis and popped it back into the car attached to an Anderson plug. He then put a 100 amp Lifeline "AGM" battery into a battery box. The battery box has cable running out of it to another Anderson plug so the battery can be removed when not needed or to be used as a mobile power supply. Inside the box he fitted a circuit breaker and two female waeco plugs to the box. He also added a three way cig socket plug with a male Waeco plug on the end to give me three power outlets if needed. The other female plug on the box is used to power my fridge, an Engel which I got him to fit a Waeco plug to as they clip in and stay in. Total cost $700.

AGM batteries have the advantage that they are completely sealed and will accept an extremely high recharge rate, basically whatever you can throw at them. A normal deep cycle will only take about 5 amps, so takes a lot of driving to get them back to full. AGM's of this size are reported to fully charge from near flat in 2-3 hours.

The other big advantage is the portability. Went away two weeks ago to some unpowered cabins up the bush and was able to take the battery into the cabin to power the fridge, lights and laptop to fiddle with my photography.

I can't speak highly enough of the setup."

Good Luck,

Jim.

Hi Pat & Cheryl.
I do not own a Rodeo however I fitted a dual system to my previous 4wd behind the rear seat. I used a sealed battery in a battery box.I originally used a solenoid but have now changed to an electronic unit(bought on ebay!!). I have kept the solenoid system just in case the electronic unit gives up the ghost.
Regards.
Vince

I just purchased a new Rodeo (which I havn't yet collected).

I had asked Holden if the Dual battery could be fitted under the bonnet. They said it was OK. So I went around to TJM ( who was fitting it for Holden) and verified if this was correct as I was sceptical. They confirmed that it was OK and that I would get a 70 a/hr battery with no problems. I then ordered the Rodeo. A couple of days later TJM rang me and said that all they could get in was a 10 inch long battery which is only 50a/hr. I told Holden that I had ordered the vehicle on the basis that they would supply the larger battery, and if they couldn't then the deal was off. They then rang me back and said that they had sourced a smaller battery which would fit and was in excess of 70 a/hr which would fit no problem ( I presume this is a dry cell battery). They are however asking for an additional $80 when I pick up the vehicle next week. I told them that this was a little unfair, however I'll decide on the day whether or not to make an issue of it.

So the answer is I think it is possible but you need to check on the size of the battery you are getting.

Paul

Hi

My current Rodeo has the second battery in the canopy / tray and it worked excellently with both an old cranking battery then a new deep cyle battery. It was located in a plastic battery box.

I thought that with my new Rodeo that it would free up the rear canopy area a bit if I got the battery installed under the bonnet. It will be interesting at the end of the week to see if it was a wise decision.

Paul

Hi Pat and Cheryl,

I have a 2001 2.8 Turbo Diesel tray top with a heaslip camper on board.
The camper comes with its own battery to power the fridge (40litre turbo engel) water pump and various lights. I fitted an extra battery(out of my boat) in the camper in parallel with the original for one trip where we were on the road for 9 weeks and staying in some very remote places, but gererally I just run with one in the camper. I built a simple home made circuit for charging the batteries from the alternator and have never had a sniff of trouble in over 4 years.
The rodeo has a 80 amp alternator as standard and seemed to handle the three batteries easily and will definitely handle two.
The charger circuit I built is very simple and consists of a transistor, capacitor, resistor and a 30 amp auto relay. Its designed so it operates atomatically some 40 seconds(this can be varied to suit user) after the truck has been started off its own battery. The relay is energised and switches the camper battery in parallel with the truck battery, so they charge together. The good thing about this is that once the ignition is turned off, the camper battery (auxillery battery) is automatically isolated from the truck and so there is no danger of running the truck battery flat with the fridge and accessories.
If you are a bit handy I can email you a circuit and you can build one yourself, or conversly Jaycar or Aztronics have a more sophisticated unit made using FETs for about $60-$70.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Graeme H
grajen_halprin@aapt.net.au