I have a 1999 Land Cruiser that I am beginning to build out for car camping/overlanding. I will have a lead acid or agm as the starter battery. I was planning on also having most of my driving lights running off of this battery. The second battery will be used for running a 12v refrigerator, charging phones, a couple accessory lights, a small inverter; I would like for this battery to be LiFePO4. My question is, is there a product that can allow both of these battery systems to be charged by the alternator and by solar panels? Or would it be better to essentially have two independent systems for each of the batteries? Thanks!
Dual Battery System with Different Battery Chemistries?
- Thread starter OffRoadRN
- Start date
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
Renogy DC-DC 50A charger. Charges from both alternator and solar.
www.renogy.com
DCC50S 12V 50A DC-DC On-Board Battery Charger with MPPT
Make sure your service battery has all the juice it needs with Renogy's DCC50S DC-DC MPPT On-Board Battery Charger. 10% off: Renogy10off. Free shipping
www.renogy.com
dirt diggler
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2020
- Messages
- 105
fratermus
Solar Enthusiast
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2021
- Messages
- 509
As others have noted, DC-DC chargers are the usual solution.
If 50A is too big for the stock alternator (quick googling shows it might be as small as 100A rating) then Renogy and Kisae both make combo DC-DC chargers in 30A, and the aforementioned CTEK in 20A. The kisae has the highest PV input limit, if you were considering running panel voltages greater than the usual 12v nominal.
Goboatingnow
Solar Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2022
- Messages
- 1,325
Dc dc charging fron the weaker ( starter ? To the stronger ( Li ) isn’t the most optimium. The other way round is better but the stock alternator regulator isn’t suitable.
But if the Li is small it makes little difference
Cool, thanks for the info. Any opinion on red arc vs renogy? Red arc has been popular in the off road community in Australia for a long time, and they have more recently becomes popular in the US. It looks like there 25A dc-dc charger is a little more expensive than renogy.
Do you mean to say redarc is built like a land cruiser, and renogy is Chinese? If so are you implying that it is Chinese junk, or that like the Great Wall it will stand the test of time?
Renogy don’t make anything, they source cheap crappy chinese components and rebadge them.
Oh ok, I didn’t know that. Looks like I’ll be going with redarc, thanks!
