dual battery setups

[justwhatido]

battery isolator versus hooking them up parallel.
I will not be doing any heavy wheeling although a couple of the easier trails at Blazer Bash next year might be fun. But, I digress............
What are the relative advantages/disadvantages of each setup?

Accessories running will be a winch, aux lights, power inverter, amplifier

Unless I get a good argument, leaning to parallel setup.

 

[dremu]

battery isolator versus hooking them up parallel.
I will not be doing any heavy wheeling although a couple of the easier trails at Blazer Bash next year might be fun. But, I digress............
What are the relative advantages/disadvantages of each setup?

Accessories running will be a winch, aux lights, power inverter, amplifier

Unless I get a good argument, leaning to parallel setup.

Isolator allows you to discharge the auxiliary battery, whilst parked with the engine off, and still start from the primary battery. Popular with the stereo crowd, for instance, or those who leave their lights on to light up the night at camp.

Doesn't so much matter what you run, as whether you run it with the engine off. If you don't expect to, then by all means parallel them.

If you do expect to use your accessories with the truck off, pick those you'll use thusly and put them on the aux, isolated battery... and run the other accessories, that only get used with the truck on, on the other circuit.

In any event they all get tied together with the truck running, so the isolator doesn't do much once the truck is started.

Make sense?

-- A