165 aH Battery

Crusader,
as you say, If you don't use it for this it's going to end up doing not much in the corner of the shed, so as it will last about twice as long as the 90ah, make the decision to place it back there and charge it from the Alternator.

Maîneÿ . . .

If you decide not to use it i'm sure you could fine new home for it with someone on this Forum... for the right price.

Hi there, I doubled up my second battery storage from one N70 size 80 AH to two in parallel to give a better margin of 'safety' (ie to minimise the risk of dropping voltage below 12v). My logic was that our 40l Engel when running at max freeze (in ambient of 40 degrees plus; perhaps up to 50 degrees or more in the vehicle) can pull a steady 3 to 4 amps or thereabouts. On that basis, 80 AH didn't seem too much by any stretch. So, at worst, with your 165AH battery and an Engel pulling up to 4 amps, then 30 hours running is 120AH. OK, so this is upper estimate but it seems to say 165AH total storage isn't silly, IF you are trying to defeat high ambient temps.
That's my two bob's worth, anyway.

Crusader,

Seeing as you already have it, you could swap it for the 90Ah battery and the extra weight wouldn't be all that much extra.

Definitely wouldn't be "portable" and I wouldn't try to remove it from the vehicle, so providing the vehicle is close enough to your camping gear, tent or whatever this shouldn't be a problem.
You should definitely get 3-4 days out of the beastie before recharging.

Just a thought mate.
If you install a 40 amp in-car charging kit to replenish the battery while driving (and running the fridge at the same time) you would probably never need to run the genny when camping and that could be left home saving extra weight:)

Home of 12 Volt have the charge kits (with built-in Isolator) which should be suitable and allows the battery to charge from the vehicle alternator.

As far as what I run, I have a 100Ah Remco AGM battery that sits inside a "Flyer" battery box but this is not removed from the vehicle as even this is quite heavy and as I also own a 75Ah Thumper battery pack, this is the one I remove and place in the campsite.


Bill.

Hi,

Thanks for that -I just neede a push to convince myself. It's in the back now and I'll hook it up during the week. Damn it's heavy - around 54 kg !! Roll on the camping season so I can try it out.

Your help is appreciated.

Cheers

Hi

i have a 200 amp hour agm battery in the back of the pajero charged via dual battery system connected with the thickest wire i could buy from jaycar and 80A fusible links at both batteries. I am very happy with the setup, and find at idle when the battery is discharged 40Amphours, I am getting a chrge rate of 50A from my system. i run a fridge and occasionally a tyre pump from this and find it excellent for my needs. The battery weighs 65 kilo so that is where it lives (strapped down). I suggest you pay the extra money and go for the bigger wiring, so as to reduce voltage drop as much as possible and get your agm as fully charged as possible. I find the beauty of this system is that the battery recharges so quickly when the car is running. A full days usage of the fridge is recharged in roughly one hour of running the engine. I dont need a generator??

regards Kc