Outskirts Overland Podcast
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Outskirts Overland Podcast
Electrifying Your Overlanding Rig: Mastering 12-Volt Systems, Dual Batteries, and Portable Power
Unlock the mysteries of your vehicle's 12-volt system with your guide, Charlie, as we journey from front to back, illuminating the essential role of the alternator and why a sturdy cold cranking amps (CCA) battery is pivotal to kickstart your adventures. This episode is a treasure trove for overlanding newbies and veterans alike, ensuring your rig's electrical system is no longer a riddle. We've got the whiteboard out and we're ready to connect the dots between fuses, relays, and the power that breathes life into your journeys.
Ever considered transforming your vehicle into a mobile power station? That's precisely what we explore as we dissect the nuances of dual battery setups and the wizardry behind power inverters. Learn the differences between standard and pure sine inverters and how they cater to your off-grid needs - from charging laptops to keeping your fridge running. And for those seeking simplicity, discover the allure of a power station, your ultimate plug-and-play ally in the wild.
Venture further with us as we navigate the landscape of portable power banks, multi-stage DC to DC chargers, and the strategic placement of secondary batteries to maximize efficiency and longevity. Whether you're eyeing the durability of lithium-ion batteries for your camper or weighing the virtues of marine deep cycle batteries, this episode packs practical insights and a hot tip about a brand that might just be the game-changer you need. Gear up to empower your overlanding escapades with confidence and a spark of electrical wisdom.
The power of the divine is.
Speaker 2:The power of the divine is the hey, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is Charlie and this is Outskirts Overland. I appreciate you guys all being here. The whiteboard has entered the chat. I'll be going over 12 volt today, 12 volt mania. I started a little early just to go over. You know my normal BS. So first things first, I'm going to mention it every show my friend has a big part of Facebook group Toyota Trucks of Arkansas. Go on over there, join the group. It's pretty cool, cool guys over there. They have some cool giveaways. I've seen a lot of giveaways. They do a lot of really cool stuff. Uh, community stuff, um, in Arkansas of course. But if you're a fan of overlanding I don't see a reason why they wouldn't let you join. Anybody join, everybody join. Um, really cool people seem very knowledgeable. Um, a guy today was like hey, I need some help putting some stuff on my Tacoma and there was a thread like all kinds of guys there, super cool, I'd assume. You know, as I promote this group they're going to get a couple people from you know out of town. But great group, great guys Really enjoy being there. You should join too. So TTOA, toyota Trucks of Arkansas, go over there and join.
Speaker 2:Second thing, very important to me. If anybody from Go Fast Campers ever watches this, listens to this, has any part in this. Holler at your boy. I want a Go Fast Camper. I want to promote you guys. I want one, so bad and I want one because you guys had a bunch of influencers that shot it, you know, made me look at it and I love it, and you know I'm here. So again, go fast campers. If you ever want to hit up your boy, I'm ready, I'd love to have it.
Speaker 2:Anyways, so today I've only got a couple people on right now. I started early. I'm going to be talking about basics of the basics of vehicle 12 volt systems, not 24 volt systems, not anything crazy. Here I mean, we're talking modern 12 volt and I'll explain what I mean by modern later. Um, I did get a new webcam, so I am. I do have a lot better uh feet per second tracking. It also auto focuses so that you guys can see my whiteboard as you see. It just focused to make stuff better for you guys.
Speaker 2:Um, as I'm starting to find my way here, kind of kind of more or less, I'm like the, the, I don't know like how to stream guy. Um and until I run out of stuff to talk about and you guys want to hear about. We're gonna. That's what we're going to do here. So, um, secondly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, fifthly, um, my friend Benji starting his new venture, newfound overland. He's got a couple little episodes out already. Go check him out. Um, he starts. His first episode comes out four, four next week. Um, yeah, next week. Uh, he's got a couple of things out now too, and he's got some YouTube stuff. I think he's going to try and be pretty engaged. He's a pretty experienced in the, in this game. I'm not, I don't, I'm not very polished whatsoever, I'm just a dude. So welcome to the shit show, anyway.
Speaker 2:So, talking about 12-volt today, I see people are rolling in now. All right, 12-volt, there's going to be a lot of screen sharing. There's going to be some getting up. There's going to be some sitting down getting up, screen sharing all over the freaking place. So, if you can see, up here I've got front and rear. What I'm referring to here is this is going to be like your engine bay of your car the front of your vehicle to the rear of your vehicle. So track with me there, make sure everybody's with me. Front of the vehicle, rear of the vehicle, and we're going to start naturally in the front. Okay, just so you guys know that's what we're doing right now. So everybody thinks 12 volt in the place that you would start.
Speaker 2:As you talk about your 12 volt system, I'm going to start with just teaching you guys like what's what. So everybody thinks battery, Battery is the well, that's hard to do backwards. Battery is the 12-volt system, right? Well, what is the precursor to a battery is the alternator. The alternator is a circular thing here, like such, and your serpentine belt rolls on it and it spins with that belt and produces power to your battery. It essentially charges your starter battery. So that's what your alternator is. So I got a high output alternator. Um, where is this bad boy at, holy moly, I don't even know where it's at. I I had a high output. There we go and I'll share this screen with you.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, all right, this is what an alternator. Nonetheless, that's an alternator. So your alternator it, right here where that little pulley is, that sucker spins when your engine's under load, idling, whatever, as the belt spins around and it charges your battery essentially Now. So I'm going to get up on back, I'm going to cut that off and we're going to go to the board. It's a lot of back and forth here, so the first thing I'm going to that we got here and I'm I'm no well. I could probably draw a lot better, but not standing up and not on a whiteboard. So, first things first, we've got your alternator, so we're going to put that here. It's got a little pulley on it, some fins, all right, guys, I'm no well here. That's not big enough for you. Guys, we're going to feel bigger than that, all right. So alternator, alternator, all right. I put that in green because without that, the battery doesn't go. That's my thought process there. So let me cut out of that, let that sucker. So there's your alternator. What the alternator does again, it keeps your battery charging while your vehicle is running. So that's what an alternator is. That's what it does.
Speaker 2:I had mentioned in my yeah, my little reel on Instagram about smart alternators so all modern vehicles and I said 2015 in my little live. I did a little research. It's like 2008 actually. So what a small smart alternator is is it doesn't so a standard alternator. When your vehicle would start, it would go straight to 14 volts and it'll keep your battery at that. A smart alternator kind of jumps that when you start the vehicle and then it drops. For efficiency, it's really for EPA and keeping gas mileage in vehicles. So it's literally for gas mileage because the alternator is a load on your engine which would thus take some power away which would thus affect your gas mileage.
Speaker 2:Venture Arkansas I will get to that shortly when I talk about upgraded stuff. The question was from Venture Arkansas can you get too high of an output alternator? Is that even possible? I'm going to talk about again. I'll cover aftermarket stuff after I cover basic stuff. So that's a great question. I will get to it today, for sure. But just stock business alternator.
Speaker 2:First thing it's in the front, looks like I mean, it looks like an alternator, I don't know what else to say about it charges your battery. Next thing. Second thing battery. But I'm going to define battery very, very quickly, as your battery is not just a battery, it's your starter battery. There is a difference between a starter battery and what you would call an auxiliary battery or a house battery. House battery, meaning that is the battery that's running your accessories. Auxiliary battery, meaning that is the battery you know, I would say house batteries running everything, if you have, like a camper or platform in the back, like some type of setup, a trailer, anything like that, auxiliary battery to me says still under the hood and could be used to also start your vehicle potentially. But I'll leave that up to interpretation. Battery starter battery is 100% its own thing. Cold cranking amps are only relevant, only relevant with a starter battery.
Speaker 2:Jay just said lots of modern vehicles come with two, come stock with two batteries. Yes, and they're on two separate circuits. I'm not even going to touch that because, again, for the purpose of what I'm going over, that's irrelevant. There's still going to be one large starter battery and that second battery usually runs a myriad of different things, but on a different circuit. You won't want to tap into both of those systems and in a lot of ways the batteries are irrelevant because you're drawing and I'll get into DC, dc chargers. But the number of batteries is really irrelevant. You could have, you could have shit. You have 10 batteries. It doesn't really matter if you have the right, yeah, and the second one's for start and stop and and that's a whole nother. You know this is going to be many parts, because modern vehicles actually are pretty complicated. Um, really, the easiest.
Speaker 2:Vehicles that were electronic were like standard alternator. Early 2000s, late 90s. You know anything that's obd2 which is a plug to the ecu for some monitoring and codes and sensors, um, and it's still what we use today. Obd2 was anything that's obd2 but wasn't like smart alternator start, stop. You know electronic, electronic, uh, cylinder delete and stuff like that, meaning it can be like four cylinders and six cylinders and eight cylinders as you need power. All those things need need juice and if you're looking to do something else with your vehicle that needs juice has to all be considered. So it's, it's, it's, we could.
Speaker 2:Again, the more I talk about this and the more I thought about how to bring this to you guys, the more I thought, man, if you really don't understand me teaching you this, I'm teaching it to you guys probably more so to where you know. Oh man, there, not tracking. Because you know a mechanical failure is is catastrophic, right, an electrical failure is just as catastrophic. If your warranty matters to you, splicing into stuff's probably not the best idea. So I'll also cover that later. But everybody wants to know 12 volt. So I'm gonna go basic 12 volt, like I don't see any harm in that. But everybody wants to know 12 volt. So I'm gonna go basic 12 volt, like I don't see any harm in that.
Speaker 2:So second thing is your battery starter battery. This is the one that's typically and we'll put it here. This is your starter battery. A little minus and a plus, that's your starter battery. Little guy there, okay, and red's cool. So red's going to be our power. So that's your starter battery.
Speaker 2:What matters with your starter battery is cold cranking amps Doesn't need to be deep cycle. It needs to be capable of high cold cranking amps to start your engine with a whole ton of power and that's it. Like it really needs to minimally run stuff after that. Um, it doesn't need to have the ability to have a long draw time. That's what a deep cycle battery is for. But a deep cycle battery is not something you'd use to start your vehicle. So this is the world of starting your car Cold cranking amps. You want this bad boy. Cold cranking amps. Get the appropriate size. That's what you want. You know there is a. There is a situation where, like, if you really don't run a lot of stuff you could, you could just run it off your battery and that it work. Um, but it is a starter battery and it is completely different from other batteries.
Speaker 2:Batteries are not N equals one. There's, there's a battery for each application in, in, in reason, right, like each application and and what's going on in your truck. So second, so second. I always say second, anyways, next is so you got your battery starter battery, your starter battery. I'm gonna cover this because these are things you guys probably already know. Your starter battery is lead acid or AGM. Okay, lead acid or AGM.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are like I'm just going to get a lithium battery and put it in my car the way a lithium battery, okay. The way a lithium battery needs to be charged, like I don't know how to explain it better than it's a different electrical pattern of charge, necessity, than your alternator in your car is going to do. So you can't just simply put a lithium battery here and like your life's all better. You just screwed up. Okay, don't do that. That's not a good idea.
Speaker 2:Again, lithium batteries are phenomenal in the right use case. That use case is not starting your car, just to be clear, or cold extremes, which again is lithium and lead acid, or not. Lithium. Cancel that cut, which is lead acid and AGM. Okay, because you want your car to start. That's this battery's purpose and that's the battery that every car has. Okay, and this alternator is meant literally charge this. And that alternator supports this starting battery to run everything else in your car that's electrical, that's how the 12-volt system works, and that's all due to this alternator when the engine is running, starting this.
Speaker 2:So a question I just got from Linebreak does the alternator only run when the engine's running? Yes, the alternator is not some magic generator that works when your car's not on. It requires the engine, it requires idle, and alternators at idle are going to put out less power. They're going to put out more power startup, less at idle and more while running. But then there is also some heat and cold parameters that affect that as well. That's way too complicated. I'm not SAE teaching you guys right now, it doesn't matter, but that's how it works.
Speaker 2:So, smart alternator this is what RedArc has to say about smart alternators, and there's actually like, if you know what to search, there's a lot about this stuff. So here's smart alternators and I'm going to scroll with you guys to explain what I was just talking about. But essentially, a smart alternator is just that. So this is a dumb alternator 14 volts, starts Battery's 12.6. That's your starter battery, this guy here, that's what it should register with the car off, it'll go to 14 with the alternator and it'll just consistently stay there. Smart alternator 12.6 as well, but it'll go up and then it'll go down. So essentially, it's going to, it's going to kind of, it's going to kind of do one of these you know, so that you don't do it, um, and it does something you know you can see here it goes way high, it goes low, it does all of those things. So it's essentially just doing a running curve to keep your battery topped off, based on all this super extensive engineering that's existed, um, to keep your car running. This is every car past 2008, I believe. Um, this does complicate things a little bit because, due to a smart alternator and it says it somewhere, but I'm the guy here, not Red Ark A smart alternator will not charge a second battery.
Speaker 2:If your vehicle has a smart charge alternator, it won't charge a second battery. It doesn't have the capacity to do it, period, it just won't do it. So you need to have something in between the alternator and your second battery, whatever it may be. Now, there's a lot that goes into that. I'm going to still stick to basic 12 volts.
Speaker 2:I'm going to talk about a few things that aren't irrelevant but aren't as relevant. Okay, so after this you should all know, like, pretty much from here you've got and I'll just I'll do it in black as well, but if this is your battery somewhere, you know here you've got some fuses and relays. You got like a little fuse box and relays and that runs off. You know your battery powers, that those are all your fuses for, like fuel pumps. You know power windows, power locks, sunroof, your amazing e-locker, like all those things are run off. Relays and fuses that exist here. Okay, all of those things, lights, you know infotainment, all that stuff, all the relays and fuses. You'll have a second fuse box. So this is you usually have a fuse box here in the engine bay and then you go through the firewall and there's usually another little interior fuse box. So as we talk about 12-volt, I feel they're relevant to talk about. Because, as we talk about 12 volt, I feel they're relevant to talk about because, as we add stuff to the normal system, this fuse stuff is relevant and it becomes relevant Whether you're looking to add a fuse to a fuse that exists based on the ignition coming on, whatever fuse you tap into, whether it's interior or exterior. But you also don't have to tap into a fuse, um, but you also don't have to tap into a fuse. I'll talk solenoids too. Um, you know, again, just basic stuff like this is the engine bay fuse box for the purpose of this presentation. This is the interior fuse box. Okay, so we're out of the engine bay here. Okay, that's your, that's your basics.
Speaker 2:Dual alternator setup, tater chip when nobody's we're not talking dual alternator setup, I'm not going to talk the Batmobile in basic 12-volt. So dual alternator setup. I did do car audio. I mentioned it earlier. I did a lot with car audio and capacitors and high output systems and stuff. But again, even then I wasn't dealing with small alternator vehicles. So irrelevant, for right now I'm not even going to touch dual alternator, just because, if you're it just, I'm just not. Usually with a dual alternator setup you're talking well, you're usually not talking just 12 volt and you're usually talking batteries in parallel, and I know that might be like Japanese to some of you guys, but we're not talking anything past one battery and one alternator or 24 volt. So I think you're referring potentially to big trucks and that's a whole I mean kind of a different ball game.
Speaker 2:But I'm not going to talk about that with this at all.
Speaker 2:It's going to pertain to you. Don't need a special licensing vehicles. Like I'm not going to get into equipment or anything like like that. Okay, so you got all this. Yeah, super calm, super common in competition. Sound systems yep, not gonna, but yes, but then we're getting into like a whole bunch of customs not doing that and belts are needed. Like I don't want to take people down that rabbit hole. So got our fuse box. Now a bunch of you guys rabbit hole. So got our fuse box. Now a bunch of you guys somewhere in your vehicle and let's make this guy. Only got so many colors, guys, let's do. I told you guys I'd make power red. That's my bust. I gotta be congruent here. Okay, so red to there, red to there, that's our fuse boxes here. Okay, so red to there, red to there, that's our fuse boxes.
Speaker 2:Next I'm gonna talk inverters. A lot of vehicles nowadays come with a stock power inverter. Now, what a power inverter does is it takes your, it takes your 12 volt and converts it to 110 volt. Okay, or so, essentially, it takes your, it takes your car's 12 volt and makes it like a house plug. So you can do a house plug and a lot. I've seen a lot of vehicles with like 400 watt inverters. Sometimes you press a button to get a different power out of it. Um, so anyway. So I'm gonna talk inverter. So just for the again, for the purpose of this presentation, we're going to go ahead and put your stock power inverter here. Okay, we're going to call this the. I'll just put an H on it and call it an inverter. Okay, now I'm going to talk inverters for a second.
Speaker 2:So you got a stock inverter in your car. Whether you can translate that with a household plug, two-prong plug, three-prong plug in the back, the car has to be running. Again, can't use it when the car is not running, or shouldn't use it when the car is not running. If the ignition is on, it may work a little bit, but you can probably fry it. Now, inverters are a big topic for contention because there's two types of inverters. There's your standard inverter, which is going to draw power, to make power. So it's going to draw quite a bit of power here and, quite frankly, really you're inverting power from this alternator battery system as well. So you can see where we're getting complicated, guys. So this inverter there's two types of inverters.
Speaker 2:Now most of you guys don't realize it, but like there is a very specific parameter for like new style electronics that require pure sign inverters. Now I don't know what's common in cars in the past, but I do know that a lot of cars now will show that the inverter in the vehicle is a pure sign inverter. A pure sign inverter is needed if you use the inverter to plug in something like a laptop, a cell phone, anything like that, with like a modern lithium battery, like I talked about before. You can't just charge lithium stuff like it's not lithium stuff, so pure sign inverter is needed. Does your vehicle have a pure sign inverter? Hell, if I know. But it's something to pay attention to and again will be relevant when you're setting up your dual battery system or your second system.
Speaker 2:And since we're talking inverters and since we're talking electric, this all is a huge point to the person that's not confident in 12 volt to just get a power station. It literally is going to do everything for your needs back here, with you not having to do anything, nothing at all. So this will be complicated. It is gonna get complicated here real soon. So, alright, so that's our basic setup. You know you might have a 12-volt plug back here in some vehicles but, like again for the purpose of this presentation, you got an alternator, a house battery, fuse, fuse box, fuse box, inverter okay, and somewhere in here exists your like 12-volt USB car play okay, again, it's fused somewhere here, based on this battery, but the alternator charging this battery while the vehicle is running. Okay, that's very basic, just car. That's just your car. Okay, that's car, 12 volt.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to stop there right now. Okay, because I don't want to go. I'm not going to stop for the whole time, but I'm gonna stop there right now. Does anyone have any questions on just what I went over here? Okay, it at all. I'm looking at the chat. It's not on the board right now because I don't want it. Just not where I'm at today with this. Does anyone have any questions about just what I've went over and exists in your car? I'll give you guys a minute. Take a drink of my purple haze tonight. I think that all is very basic and pretty easy to understand and we're going to start talking from here. We're going to go all right adding to it. How's that look and what's needed for that? And that's where we'll get into a lot of stuff here. Okay, I'm not seeing nothing pop up, no questions? Okay, that makes me happy. I think I kindergartened this enough.
Speaker 2:So is it bad if my cold cranking amps are low? Okay, so you're not going to want the most cold? Well, yeah, I mean, if you have a low cold cranking amp battery, it's not ideal period and it's not going to suit you super well. So, like I see a lot of people go into like those really light Odyssey batteries because of, uh you know, weight savings and stuff, it's well, that's really big in racing, okay, so I see that in racing a lot. Um, yeah, it might start your vehicle, but again, you're not racing in the winter, in the snow usually. So, yeah, I mean you really want, is it bad? I'm not here to tell you what's good or bad, but like you want high cold cranking amps on your house or on your, on your starter battery. That's, I mean that's its purpose, its whole purpose is it's like a football player, like it needs to. That's cold cranking Start my car, make my stuff start, make it go.
Speaker 2:Now, when we're talking, and that's that segues right into. We want this battery that doesn't ever smack but just sustains power, can be discharged real far, recharges quickly to run all these gadgets that we have back here. So I'll get into that, okay. But the first thing that I think okay. So, if you're, these two things are synonymous. But I can't, I don't have nine hands, I can't show you here here and here at the same time. So bear with me, but there's two things that we need now. So we, we've decided okay, in this event, we've decided we want a second battery. Okay, for and again, that's the way I'm going to go with this We've decided we want a second battery. Okay, cool, but that battery again I'm sure you guys have gathered will not be a starter battery. We're going to go with something deep cycle, something that can handle a load you know, a low load, but for a long time, and we want something that charges faster. Well, that now leads us to two types of batteries lithium, lithium ion and life PO4,.
Speaker 2:Lithium iron phosphate, lithium iron phosphate battery. Now, there's some drawbacks to both those batteries, but the pros hugely outweigh the cons. Okay. So I, I would recommend okay. So lithium batteries do have a tendency to. Okay, they don't have a tendency, but they have a potential to catch fire. So, again, that's not like it's going to happen. Don't be fear-mongered into that. But lithium iron phosphate batteries don't have that. They're much safer, but they are more expensive. Don't have that. They're much safer, but they are more expensive.
Speaker 2:Now, when you're dealing with a lithium iron phosphate battery or a lithium ion battery, they have a life cycle that's about 10 times your starter battery. They can be discharged down to 5% without damaging the battery, where this battery can only be discharged to 50% without hurting it. So, and they charge twice as well. Some people say three times as fast. But, all that being said, you've got this, you know, for lack of a better term, this fucking magic battery. Okay, so you know, we got the unicorn battery. We'll go ahead and put it here. So we got the. We got this freaking magic battery back here. What are we going to call it? We'll just call it second battery. So we got this magic battery back here that charges twice as fast and lasts five times as long, and whatever.
Speaker 2:But you cannot charge said magic battery off of. So you can't just go oh, blop, that's going to charge it and we're going to be good, that works. Okay, you can't just run power from here to this. You can't just run power from here to this. There is a necessary thing in between. Okay, and I'll erase that. So it's not as easy as like oh, we're just gonna piggyback some stuff on some other stuff to this magic unicorn battery, that that I paid a thousand dollars for, that is. You know, it's got a battery manager in it and it heats up when it's cold, so you don't have any problems with it. And all this stuff Like cool, that's only $1,000. Yeah, well, wrong, that's not how that works, guys, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:So in between here and here, you got to have what's called a DC to DC charger. So what a DC to DC charger is is it's going to take the power from your alternator, convert it and charge this battery. It's essentially a controller for a second battery. So you need to go. Essentially, we're going to go, we're going to call it here. Well, I want to do it closer, because this is actually an important point. So you put your DC-DC charger in. We're going to make it blue too, just because I don't have endless markers. So your DC-DC charger will go here and we'll make it a triangle, because I feel like a triangle. So that's a DC, there's a DC DC charger.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, it's very important to note that you want your DC to DC charger as close to the second battery as possible. Okay, now, anybody that listens to this later, it's just not going to be useful to this specific podcast. There is wire size, voltage drop how far you're running wire matters to voltage drop to wire size. That's just not day one stuff. So I'm going to get into the basics of kind of what people want, gain some trust that I know what the hell I'm talking about, and then we're going to get into more complicated stuff in the coming weeks, ok, so anyways, basically you need to run power to the DC to DC charger.
Speaker 2:The DC to DC charger is going to be able to to run your more exotic batteries. It's going to be able to charge it, and different DC to DC chargers are going to be able to convert, convert, you know, 20 amps into this battery, 25 amps, 40 amps into this battery, depending on the one you you get, okay, and I'll show you guys a few, and some batteries too. But you want your DC to DC charger as close to the second battery as possible. So this is where I do see a bunch of DIY guys go really wrong and they go DC to DC charger engine bay, second battery, back of the rig. Okay, that's, that's losing efficiency, okay, big time. So if you make sure you got the right size wire to run this, run it all the way to the back. You're going to be running a big wire and it's going to be expensive Wire's expensive but you want this thing as close to this as possible, like I mean, and you can't be too close, like on top of that sucker. It's really important that that's really close for maximum efficiency. Now, so it's not as easy as just get DC chargers and I'm sharing them now. These are Red Arc and these are common.
Speaker 2:Again, you guys, I'm going to show you multiple DC to DC chargers and I'm going to leave it to you guys, if this is a route you want to go, to make your own decisions. Some of them are way more expensive than others. But you guys have heard of brands. I know a brand you guys have heard of is Red Ark period. So I'm going to start there, but I'm going to show you guys more than just Red Ark.
Speaker 2:Okay, and before anyone asks, I don't have a single Redarc product in my truck. I don't have a DC to DC charger in my truck. Okay, I don't have a dual battery. I went a completely different route. I have a power bank and I charge that passively via solar and my truck through 12 volt. Okay, on a fuse. That's it. I want to be able to take my power out of my truck. You do a dual battery. It's only in the truck period, so there's that. That's a whole other thing, but that's maybe not what you want to do, okay, so there's that to do. Okay, so there's that.
Speaker 2:Now, when you use a dc to dc charger like one of these, they also have jump start capabilities. Some of them, but like this one, is multi and again, this matters multi-stage dc to dc. This one's ignition control old, so that you so when your car comes on. This is a BCDC, which is the one that all your YouTubers with RedArc stuff have, the BCDC, this guy, it's bigger but also really good. There's multiple of them. There's all kinds of different ones. There's kits for them. Um, you know, stuff, stuff. As it pertains to trailers as well, I mean, redarc makes brake controllers too. There's off-grid power kits. This is more like your manager 30, but if you guys look, that's 1800 freaking dollars and there's no battery there. So I mean again, I, some people that that listen to my stuff, that might be well within your budget, but these are, they're all about 400 bucks for the Redarc ones. Okay, so cool, awesome, nope, I mean, that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm going to touch on, I'm going to just I put in, I'll share this tab. I put in Renogy DC to DC charger. I mean you can see the price difference here, guys. Now the negative with Renogy and, to be honest, I'm familiar with Renogy personally, I've used Renogy products, but I have heard their customer support is very much lacking, hugely lacking.
Speaker 2:Can those stay in your engine bay? Your magic battery? Yeah, it could stay in your engine bay if you wanted it to, but it is going to be more exposed to the elements in there and those batteries are vulnerable. They don't perform as well in the elements, depending on which one you get. Um, some of them don't perform well in the cold. It like straight, just kills them and they can't take a charge when it's cold or if it's extremely hot and you're lending your, you're lending heat to exist in the engine bay as well as cold because it's less insulated. So again, second battery is probably best suited under a seat, behind a seat, in the back.
Speaker 2:Um, and your lithium style, uh, lithium, iron phosphate. There's no um acid or anything that you have to worry about. So they're, they're pretty good. You can also turn them whatever direction you want them, those batteries, like you fucking put it upside down, it doesn't matter, um, anyways. So there's a big, there's a huge price difference between renergy, red arc, and then orion is victron, so this is a victron. Um, and this is what battleborn batteries, which again you, again you guys have all heard of Battle Born Batteries, I'd assume, and if you hadn't, welcome to the show, this is Battle Born Batteries, but it's also a similar price and Victron is very.
Speaker 2:I have a little bit of experience with Victron. Victron is really, really popular in off-grid houses. Battle Born Batteries are really popular in off-grid houses. Dakota Lithium is really popular in off-grid houses. Dakota lithium is really popular in off-grid houses, and it's 12 volt too. It's still the same. It's 12 volt. It just there's no alternator, so it's just solar.
Speaker 2:So you're not tapping into a car, um, but again, tons, guys, tons, guys, tons of variants in 12-volt DC to DC charger. I'd be hard-pressed to not, and I'll say this out loud it is expensive, but it's tried and true. Thec dc 1225d this guy here I have never heard a bad thing about it or red arc, let's leave it at that. If that's the route you're gonna go, I think that's pretty much the industry standard right there. So as far as dc dc chargers go, so there's that. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:So we got this magic battery back there. It's still 12 volt, but you do need to have that dc to dc charger attached to it. Okay, so now we've got that and you can set that up different ways to like isolate it. So, like, what a battery isolator does is essentially whichever way you want it to go, um, depending, and it can be circuited different, just depending on how you do it. But essentially, what a battery isolator does is it allows you to, when the car's off, just make sure that you're isolating this battery without drawing off of this battery. So these are the right way to do things. This would be the appropriate way to do this and how a professional will very, very, very basically go about doing this.
Speaker 2:Now I've seen people just run parallel. Ok, so that's, that's as far as I'm getting today. Ok with this, ok with this discussion. I'm now going into the here's. What I've seen people do that you shouldn't do, okay, which I think you know. I'm not a fan of this talk. I've told you guys that for six weeks now, so this will make it fun for me. It's going to be like the ridiculousness of Overland, okay. So bear with me, because this is the only part that I really like about this Doing this for you guys. So, so Stick with me here.
Speaker 2:You cannot Take I mean, you can do it, okay. I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do. I will. I will digress, okay. So again, I will erase all the don'ts shortly. But if you decide you want to just get another starter battery, you're of the mind I'm going to get another starter battery and I'm just going to take that positive to that positive and that negative to that negative on a different battery. Another starter battery okay, that's called in parallel, okay now.
Speaker 2:And then say you want to run all your crap off that when the car is not running, well, two things again. They don't have the capacity, they don't recharge as fast, but when a battery is in parallel, they're charging equally and they're discharging equally. So the potential for you to kill both these batteries at the same time is like going to happen. Okay, maybe not immediately, immediately, but it's gonna happen. So, as this battery discharges, it's not like there's no isolator, like I explained here, that shuts one off from the other. They are now one battery, essentially.
Speaker 2:So, as this discharges the when I say this discharges, this is this Both are this. So if you discharge both of these, the 50%, they're both F'd period and they're not going to charge up like this. One charges first and this one charges second. They don't know that they're not the same. They think in electrical terms, these batteries think they're the same battery, so they're going to discharge and recharge the same and it's going to take forever. So this is don't do this. Ok, don't just think like Moe is better. No, mama was wrong. Again, you know like, don't do that, it's a bad idea. It's a bad idea, it's a bad idea, okay.
Speaker 2:Secondly, a lot of people and again this is a do what I say, not what I do, because again, different Some of you will see my truck and be like, oh, you did this at once. Okay, I did this to run a set of LED lights that pull two watts. Okay, okay, I did this to run a set of LED lights that pull two watts. Okay, like, this is by me telling you this. I'm again. If you want to run an LED light off of your starter battery, by all means, whatever.
Speaker 2:What I do see a lot of folks do too, is take their starter battery, and it's very easy. This is super easy. Find what gauge wire you need to power the stuff that's in the back of your truck. You know you get a fridge back here, some lights back here, and you know, maybe your diesel heater. Okay, man, you want to know.
Speaker 2:Don't trust Charlie, he don't know what the hell he's talking about. You just run that power straight back here. You put 12 volt plug in. You put some USBs in, man, you run. Maybe put two 12-volts. We got a diesel heater, we got a fridge, we charge our shit.
Speaker 2:Don't listen to Charlie, okay, also stupid, don't do that. That's not a smart idea and you're going to get stranded doing that. Okay, because again, you're discharging a battery that's not made to handle that draw when the engine's off. That's not a battery for this. Ok, it will work. It will work until it doesn't. And then you're screwed. And once you charge these batteries like it just because the battery this isn't, this isn't a double A Like you charge this thing to dead. It it's now is dead. You charge a regular battery past 50 and it damages the battery. You could even drop a cell like, eliminate the function of a cell. So that's not a good idea.
Speaker 2:And I have seen people they're like I don't go out long enough to you know blah, blah, blah and they run their fridge off this and their diesel heater off this and and and somewhere in the middle, which I'll talk about next week more, but somewhere in the. You know blah, blah, blah and they run their fridge off this and their diesel heater off this and and and and somewhere in the middle, which I'll talk about next week more. But somewhere in the middle you, you need a fuse to that. You know you need to fuse it so if it gets it's short it doesn't fry this battery too, which again I've seen people or breaker you could do a breaker too, and I'll and again I'll have screen share for all that crap next week breakers and fuses and different stuff for that in 12 volt. But this also not a good idea. And this leads me to where people that want to do this are like I'm just going to put a lithium here and that's going to all work. No, because you need this charger to charge that lithium. This alternator won't charge that lithium, nor will this lithium start your vehicle as well as this battery. So a second battery, really, kind of you're starting to get the gist Now. So that's a bad idea. Okay, that's also a bad idea.
Speaker 2:If you were going to run some USB, could you do this and run a USB to the back and charge your phone once a night? Yeah, you could, that would work. But again, if you want to put in that much work to do that, I did that. If you want to, yeah, that'll work. To add some USBs, you could also just add some USBs off the plugs in the back. Again, I have the cheapest of the cheap Toyota Tacomas and I don't have a plug in the back. So I did it like that.
Speaker 2:But again, wouldn't run a fridge, wouldn't run a diesel heater, wouldn't run any stove, wouldn't run anything for long speakers, nothing, nothing like that would I run for any amount of time that's pulling, you know, an LED light in the back strip between three, between one and three watts probably, and maybe a usb plug like that. That's it. I would nothing that that uses any type of power or overlanding would I do that with? Okay, okay, so there's that. And by doing it that way, it will have power to it all the time your plug your factory, plug off this inverter and stuff that's back here. There's that, and by doing it that way, it will have power to it all the time your plug your factory, plug off this inverter and stuff that's back here, like your spare auxiliary 12 volt or whatever. None of those work without the ignition on, okay, which is where this is beneficial. But what I was going to also get to is everyone looks and I'll get back to batteries everybody looks at this second battery and so the people that essentially go parallel because it's cheap, or just hardwire 12 volt, just hot to hot ground to ground back here because it's easy, they're like well, it's just because I don't go for a long time.
Speaker 2:Guys, this battery does not need to be big. You don't have to have a hundred amp hour lithium back here. If you don't go that long and you drive and you're not staying put for very long, get a smaller battery and guess what If it's? You go big battery is big money, you go small battery is smaller money magic. So pay attention, like, just pay attention. Like again, yes, the YouTubers have 200 amp hours of lithium. You're not them. Okay, period, you don't need 200. And if you have a 100 amp hour starter battery, you can only use 50 of that without damaging the battery. If you get a 50 watt, a 50 amp hour second battery, you use all 50 and it's going to charge way faster and that's going to be cheaper.
Speaker 2:So let me get batteries here. So I'm going to pull up. Um, I I searched lithium ion batteries for camper just to, just to, just to get there. Now, guys, I'm gonna be honest, be honest. Here's Lytime, here's PowerCream, which actually looks a lot like Dakota Lithium. Hey man, amazon's got a ton of batteries. Guys, because you'll see the price difference here, this and this look real similar. That's 227 and that's 799. Again, if you're not living out of it, you know, work at your own risk, but there's a bunch of them, 100 amp hour ones. Amazon could be your friend in finding a cheaper one. This is a, this is x2 power. That's a good brand. That's a lithium iron phosphate $1,099. And again, you still need the DC-DC charger to charge that.
Speaker 2:I really like this Wheeze brand a lot. I know people personally use this brand. This guy right here. So that's this, this guy I've heard people use with good success and it's ironically, it's on sale right now. Um, so, yeah, that guy works. And again, it's just positive and negative. It's not like that. But you'll even see that the inputs are different.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, but yeah, so, but yeah, but could, yeah, here I gotta. Oh, was I not sharing that whole time? Guys, here, here's that wheeze battery. That's my bad. So here's that wheeze battery that I was talking about. That's actually at a, at a decent price, and it's a life po4, which is just a periodic table for lithium iron phosphate. Um, not a big deal there, um, and I was showing here, so that I was just showing different brands of amazon lithium, lithium ion, lithium iron phosphate. Prices are all over the place. Yourices are all over the place. You can be all over the place with those batteries.
Speaker 2:Okay, a question from this is Tater Chip. This is sort of the same topic, but could you run a wire? Could I run a wire off my seven pin trailer plug on my to a DC to DC charger on my boat to charge my marine deep cycle as I'm driving down the road. Yeah, you could, for sure. Yeah, I have one off my trailer plug too, but you obviously again, yes, you could do that, you could. Probably We'll take that conversation off of here.
Speaker 2:But yes, getting into trailers and boats and trailer lights and different stuff like that, I'm not going to cover much of here. But yeah, there's, there's stuff you can do there for sure, for absolutely there's stuff you can do there. You can, you can even. Yeah, anyways, I'm not gonna get into it. But yeah, holler at me on whatever, dm me, yes, but yes, that's possible. Yes, we can, something like that is possible, so for sure, ok, so let me think. All right, we're almost at an hour and this is just level one.
Speaker 2:I've literally just got you guys to what this stuff is how to put a second in and just the necessary equipment, which is a wire, a DC, a DC charger and a second battery. At this point, you have a second battery. That's what you have. It is not wired to anything. There is no, we haven't talked about S pods or or or control systems for this or fusing it or wiring multiple things up. None of that, and that all is stuff that we will talk about. And size of wire, and do you want it all to run when the truck's off? And isolating batteries, and those are all things you got to think about when you're looking at products. Those are some features some of the cheaper products might not have. Like, I don't know how the cheaper DC-DC chargers work, I don't. I do know the Redarc has a lot of features and it works really well, so I know that period. So that's very basic. I'll also talk because it is relevant to 12-volt systems.
Speaker 2:If you're trying to hardwire in a GMRS radio, how do you hardwire that in? Because you could do that off this battery too. If you want your GMRS to only work when the car's on, and then it matters what GMRS you get, are you getting a big 50 watt GMRS? Well, that kind of matters if you hotwire that, meaning, like always, power, because if you forget to turn it off it'll drain again. I tapped. I did that. I tapped in a fuse in this. In this fuse box ran a hard wire to my GMRS here and my GMRS. Obviously I could turn it on and off in the truck, but it also will never be on when the truck is off, because I tapped a fuse into something that's only on when the ignition is on. Power's only to it when the ignition is on.
Speaker 2:So, awesome, see you, tater Chip. I appreciate you being here. I didn't see you last week, so I'm happy to see you again, so anyways. So I'll go over. I mean, there's a lot to go over here. Still, you might be like oh, that covers it all, not even close, like we still got to talk.
Speaker 2:What are we installing with this? What kind of power load does that do? What's amp hours to watt hours? Because all these lithium iron batteries are amp hours, but all your power stations show watt hours. Well, what's that watt hour to amp hour? So if I see everybody using this you know blue, eddie, 1500 watt hour Well, how many amp hours is that to be comparable to this battery? And vice versa. Like, how many amp hours create this many watt hours, watt hours, the amp hours.
Speaker 2:Because at the end of all of this, guys, you might all just go get power stations. You might be like, damn, this is a lot of work. Yes, agreed, it's a lot of work and you can do it cheap. I am not going to show you guys how to cheap out on this, because if you burn your car down, I don't want you to burn it down on my accord. So again, I would highly recommend a professional. Half my freaking friends are on here thinking, oh, I'm going to sleep on Charlie's couch. No, you are not and I'm not doing this for you. So don't even with me. I know you guys are thinking it. So, anyways, I'm not doing all your all stuff because we haven't and we haven't even touched on solar, solar controllers. Some of the DC to DC chargers will, will could do solar controllers. Lots of solar panels have their own solar controllers.
Speaker 2:How do you make your second battery charge off solar and not the DC DC charger Like cause you want it working solar and and and when the car's on DC DC? Do you want them both to work? Do you want you know one to be primary over the other? Does it have a control to where you can't overcharge your battery? There is so much more to go over, guys. I really foresee this being three weeks, honestly, and I'm going to talk a little more about how to add accessories, because that's a whole another hour period.
Speaker 2:So just right before I hop off here, does anybody have any questions? Anything new? Anybody got anything? Is everybody happy? I'm finally touching on this. Has it been overwhelming? Again, if you listen to it later, you could watch this one.
Speaker 2:Hopefully. I explained it all well enough to you guys to kind of get the get the point. Explained it all well enough to you guys to kind of get the get the point. Hopefully, if not on YouTube, it'll be there with my beautiful drawings, um. But yeah, I guess for the last couple of minutes here I'll go ahead and put the chat up on the board. If you guys have anything, um, by all means bring it here. Um, and I appreciate that line break saying you love it. I appreciate that because this was highly this one was asked about so much.
Speaker 2:And again, guys, again, I am not a professional at this. I have a day job in the mortgage industry. Okay, again, I was an electrician at one point. My father was an electrician at one point. I have a lot of teachings, but again, not what I do professionally. And I would refer to a professional for most of this stuff because detrimental to the longevity of your vehicle and your vehicle's electrical system requires a lot of knowledge and confidence to be tackling something like this, or even the guidance of somebody that knows what they're doing, could be very helpful. If you could gather that it's much like.
Speaker 2:But the more I thought about this, I thought about this kind of like first aid. Like, should you really leave first aid to a professional? In a lot of instances, yeah, but is it okay to be knowledgeable? A professional? In a lot of instances, yeah, but is it okay to be knowledgeable? Like, some of the stuff I've taught you guys here might help you guys troubleshoot a problem you have with just your basic system. Like the power goes to here, goes to there, goes there. Like this isn't working, where's that go to? Oh, my battery light's on. Well, is it my battery or is it my alternator? Some of you guys don't know that stuff. That's basic car stuff. So, like, that's worth knowing. Okay, like period.
Speaker 2:But again, as I get into this, I really do believe everybody's gonna be like, damn, that's over my head actually. Some of you guys are gonna be like, oh, okay, and some of you guys are like, okay, thanks for nothing, I knew all this and maybe next week's going to be. I mean, maybe none of it's going to be useful if you pick up a yeah, so I appreciate. Uh, line break said the camera's a lot better. Yeah, man, I'm really digging the camera with the autofocus and stuff. This is the not the best money can buy, but this is the best Charlie's money could buy, sponsored by myself. So, and it does detach and I can change it too. It's not fixed, which is for another time. Um, and also he just also line break also, just so I said this has been super helpful for me.
Speaker 2:He builds computers but not cars. And yeah, this is just. This is the basics. We'll get into more stuff next week. Again, I didn't touch on products on my radar, but I did show you guys some products that relate to this. So that'll be it for this week.
Speaker 2:Next week, again, we'll be talking 12-volt as a continuation of this. I'm going to try and keep this exactly like this for the whole week so that I can just work. You know, show you guys a continuation from here, ok, and if you guys wouldn't mind, next week when I do start this stream, I want to know what you guys are looking to run in your cars, like what, what is it that you're running? What is it that you're running? So I can almost kind of sort of cater to that and talk about how many watts that draws and what that looks like in amps and startup amps and different things.
Speaker 2:Diesel heater is a big one, doesn't use a lot when it's running but uses a lot to start and uh, and just kind of how that works. Because fusing, when you fuse, how you wire stuff in, will be dependent on the what the max draw is of that stuff. Um, and again, that'll make sense, but not not, just not yet. And if you already know, then it makes sense. But so, but when I start to stream next week, next week will be Wednesday. Wednesday next week at six 30.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm just going to open up the chat first, actually. Um, I'm just going to open up the chat first, actually, unlike every other week, and be like what are you guys running? I'm? I'm thinking fridge diesel heater, lights, usbs, I don't know, though, like some, I don't. You might have a freaking microwave, for all I know. I don't know Convection of it. I don't know what you guys run and I would like to discuss. You know what it is that you guys are running, so would like to discuss. You know what it is that you guys are running. So, and again. If you guys listen to this tonight, it'll be up tonight. Um, leave a comment, leave a review. Email me, charlie, at outskirtsoverlandcom. Um, with anything, whether you love it, you hate it, you agree with me, you disagree with me. I appreciate you all and, uh, I will see you all next week and have a good evening. Talk to you later.