dual battery problems 2003 Prado

If you are on the western side of the city I m able to recommend the ARB store at Sumner Park. They installed a dual battery system in my 2005 TD. The installation included a heavy duty cable and plug wired into the jack door in the rear to power an Engel. They also wired in an anderson plug to charge the camper trailer batteries.

Price was reasonable. The job neatly and professionally installed ... so the Toyota service manager said.

You will be asking a lot of your battery if you want to run both fridges especially the power sucking chescold! But as long as you get it on gas as soon as you stop travelling it shouldn't be a problem. You will need a separate wire run for you fridge then you will prob need another for you trailer using an andersons plug/skt arangement. But I don't know anyone in Bris :-(

Leroy

Are you using the cig ligher outlets in the back?

Is there voltage when the ignition is turned ON?

The cig lighter/power outlets are controlled by the ignition switch - they go off with the ignition (from memory).

The other issue is that the factory wiring is not suitable for use on fridges - you need proper cabling to run one fridge, let alone two fridges.

I would suggest you run both fridges from a single decent run of cable. From memory the chescold will draw up to 10A, and the waeco about 6A, when running. The waeco's used to have a low voltage dropout that would trip at about 11.5V, and disconnect the fridge from the power supply until reset. Remember this isn the voltage seen at the fridge, and it may dip below the threshold when the fridge switches on.

"i have a 2003 Prado and it came with dual batteries as standard."

Are you sure? As far as I know they never came with factory second batteries. Must be an aftermarket job.

You have a huge can of worms there.

#1 Your dual batteries have been fitted by a previous owner. We assume that you have an isolator (redarc, Pirahna, Rotronics etc) between them, so the starting battery never runs out. There are different types of these things - tell us what youve got.

#2 Your rear sockets are for small power consumption items like lights - not fridges, and they only have power when ACC is on. Your Chescold will draw over 10amps continuously, which is way more than a socket can handle. Your Waeco will probably cut out because of the skinny wiring on the factory socket. You need to have a fused thick wire from your 2nd battery to the rear of your vehicle for fridges, and a decent connector - not a cig socket, that melt or fall apart.

#3 Your Waeco (a compressor fridge) can be left running in the vehicle overnight because it uses little power. Its the better type to have in the vehicle.

#4 Your Chescold (a 3-way fridge), but is very inefficient on 12volts - it will flatten your 2nd battery overnight, and the contents will be warm in the morning. So it needs to be taken out of the vehicle and run on gas overnight. Dont try running it on gas inside the vehicle - you will blow your car up. These fridges don't work well in hot weather, they need to be perfectly level, and it can be hard to regulate the temperature in them. People who buy them, generally like to camp in one spot, and they will run for a week or two off a cylinder of gas. You can run it off a good 12volt supply in the car while driving only.

#5 Camper trailer battery is complicated. You'll probably find some massive debates in the archives. But you'll need thick wiring through to the trailer, anderson plugs at your towbar, short-circuit protection at each battery, and the trailer battery needs to be well earthed.

You're right - you need a good auto-electrician to do it. Hopefully someone from Brisbane may make some suggestions.

Cheers
phil