This is exactly the kind of info I’m looking for. Thanks for the insight.
I took the plunge and ordered the Dr. Prepare setup. As an aside, it pains me to type that ridiculous brand name. Fingers crossed it is decent quality. It will be my house battery which will mainly power my ARB fridge and diesel heater.
Looking forward to your review! It’s top of my list right now, but I’m still doing some research on alternatives before I pull the trigger.
I recommend the EcoFlow brand for batter/power supply/inverter. Very easy to read the panel, to set up and provides a variety of DC/AC and USB charging options. It’s been very reliable for me and I charge it on house AC before leaving on a trip, then have 300 w of solar panels (3) on top of GoFast while on the go, and whole system works better than expected. I have this model of EcoFlow:
Good luck!
How did this battery measure up to your expectations? I’m gearing up for a multi-week road trip this summer and have yet to find anything better for the price. Would love to hear your take on it.
Too early to give much of a review as I have only used it on one trip so far. But it is working as advertised to date. I have a Renogy DC to DC 40amp charger that I have connected to it.
I do not yet have my fridge wired to it so the only things it was powering was my diesel heater and some phone/iPad charging.
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I installed a couple of different set-ups - started with a dual battery system under the hood using an AGM battery and REDARC BCDC1225D. I used an Off Grid engineering kit. I thought i could save some cash with the setup and do it all myself. It works and the Odyssey Battery I have has lasted a long while. However it’s heavy and the battery will not last more than a day or two without some sun. I never bought an inverter for it since I already spent a ton of money on the setup.
This year I added a Buetti Power station BLUETTI EB70S - it works well and lasts at least twice as long as the AGM batter and has a built in inverter. The only downside to this unit is that the DC is limited to 10 amps and the inverter is limited to 800 watts. It can’t power a few things I have but it works great with the lights and charging my phone and accessories. I also bought a Dr Prepare 100ah Battery that I’m using as an extra power source to charge the EB70S
If I had to do it all over again, I would not go with a dual battery system. It’s a lot of work, not as inexpensive as you would think and doesn’t last as long as I wold like. the next power station wold be something similar to the BLUETTI AC200MAX with the advance of a 30 amp DC output and 2200 watt inverter (you can find ones with higher output but they tend to get heavy).
hope that helps.
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Wondered what brand of solar panels you are using on top of the go fast for this set up and whether you need to have anything between the solar panel and the power station?
Here’s my bed area setup:
I run a LiTimes 100A 12v LiFEPO4 inside the All Top battery box. All Top one has 12v ciggy ports, 2x fused 50A Anderson connectors, voltage readout, and 2 external terminals included for $80. LiTimes LiFEPO4 was around $260 for their end of year sale.
To charge it, I opted for a Renogy MPPT-equipped DC-DC charger. I run a 6 AWG power and ground cable to the starting battery with a trigger wire to my LP6 backlight that’s connected to my Switch-Pro 9100 set to turn on when ignition is on (so I don’t need to run another wire into fuse box for ign on/off) That way when the engine is running the battery gets charged.
I then run power and ground from the LiFEPO4 to a Blue Sea Grounded Fuse Block for my camper lights and to run the diesel heater. I also added a bus bar and a switch system to control the accessories. (Aka battery->power and ground to fuse block ->power and ground to the switch system → switch system controls power to the Bus Bar → accessory power side runs from the bus bar).
So far I can run camper lights for both upstaris and downstairs for 6+ hours and diesel heater for over 12 hours and with 1v drop.
I run fridge via my Ecoflow systems in the cab. I went that route because my Ecoflow not only powers the fridge when the truck is off (I have a hot wired cable to the battery for the fridge when vehicle is running) but also Starlink as well. I have combined 3000wh of power on the Ecoflow side and ~1000wh of power on the bed side.
I thought about doing dual battery for the bed side but realized I could get away with it and achieve the same result with my current setup while only put down under $500. The only downside is the bed side battery cannot be used to jump the starting battery, which is fine. I have a jumper pack for that purpose.
edit: the best thing about it Renogy DC-DC charger has an optional bluetooth dongle so I can monitor it while driving.
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Following up on my Dr. Prepare 100ah battery. Now that I’ve had it for about a year & several trips I can say it has been trouble free. It powers my ARB fridge and diesel heater, plus the occasional phone/iPad charging. So I’m not putting it in any extreme situations but all in all I am happy with the purchase.
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Question…I’m looking for a back up power supply?
How long does it run the refrigerator and diesel heater for?
How many days running a diesel heater all day and night plus refrigerator would it last? If you tested that out?
How many days running just the heater at night and the refrigerator 24/7?
And how long does it take to charge with out a dc to dc system…can you wall charge it of a generator?
Here’s my writeup on the power station:
I still use it all the time and it’s fantastic. No wasted energy converting from DC to AC and back to DC. I can charge it while I drive off the wall outlet in my Tacoma’s truck bed. I haven’t tried charging with solar because I simply haven’t stayed in one place long enough to need to. If I was just using my fridge on it, it would probably last several days (depending on the outside temp). I charge my phone and tablet off it too. I also can unplug the fridge for a little bit to run my Joolca for a quick shower. I don’t have a diesel heater so I can’t speak to that. You could easily wall charge it off a generator. Overall an extremely solid power station for the price if you don’t need AC power. I highly recommend it.
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I don’t really stay in one place for more than 1 or 2 days usually without running my truck. So I don’t really have the answers you’re looking for. That said - the how many days can you run the fridge is highly dependent on how hot it is outside.
Diesel heaters don’t take very much power, it is just a few minutes at startup & shutdown when the glow plug is on that it draws ~10 amps. But overall they are not a significant draw in my experience.
I’ve only charged my Dr. Prep battery from the DC to DC charger. I thought I had read something that you should not charge it unless you’re using a charger that specifically supports lithium batteries.
i currently have both kinds of “power station” in my truck right now and here’s what I think of each:
-
Power Station - EcoFlow Delta 2 (~1000wh cap) + Add-on Battery (~2000wh cap)
This is the combo I put inside the cab. I run my IceCo JP42 off it 24/7/365. In summer days, when the truck is not running, the fridge will drain the Delta 2 (1000wh) in about 24 hours with the fridge set at 32F and trip the notification on my phone to tell me it’s done. With the add-on battery, it can run for another ~48 hours. Unfortunately, you cannot run diesel heater simultaneously when running the fridge due to single ciggy outlet.
However, it does have multiple AC outlets for you to run AC appliances.
Currently, this one is charged by alternator only via a Victron Smart DC-DC Charger through XT-60i cable. At peak, it can push about 370w of power into the Delta 2 when the truck is running.
I use this setup to run the fridge, Starlink (I set this up before Starlink DC conversion kits were a thing), USB charging iPad mini for offroad navi, drone batteries, action camera batteries, mic batteries, headlamps, etc. I can charge up to 5 or 6 things at once, 2 of them being 100w USB-C quick charger. -
Power Brick - 100AH LiFEPO4 Deep Cycle Battery
This sits inside the camper inside an All-Top Battery Box. This is the battery that powers everything inside the camper: camper lights, cooking lights, 10 rock lights, 2 Baja Designs S2 I use as camp lights, and 2 circuits with Anderson connectors to run Waterport water pump and diesel heater.
Battery box has voltage readout, as well as USB and ciggy ports in addition to 2 more 50A Anderson connectors.
I’ve ran diesel heater off this battery for over 24H of continuous run and the voltage was still reading 12.8v, so diesel heater shouldn’t be a problem for 2-3 nights.
I use a Renogy 50A DC-DC w/ MPPT for this one, simply because it’s a lot easier to run solar cables for the camper than into the cab. I’ve yet to run solar yet, (that’s project for this weekend and next), but I am running 2 200w Bouge RV Yuma panels on the roof of GFC. I’m setting it so I have options: when truck is running, both panels will charge the camper 100AH battery. But when I’m setting up basecamp mode, I can unplug one panel’s quick disconnect and connect it with XT-60i to charge the Delta 2 if it’s too windy to deploy my portable panels.
The downside of this system is, you can’t run anything AC powered without using an inverter. Running an inverter does make you lose some energy efficiency though.
The other way to charge this on shore power is using a dedicated LiFEPO4 AC-DC charger at home, if you so choose to.
Both systems have their pros and cons. IF you don’t use AC at all, going with the battery and a quality DC-DC charger with MPPT will be cheaper than buying a power station. Hook it up to solar, then you can recharge it in the day time when you go do your activities. But you’ll not get the app control that most quality power station manufacturers have.
On the other hand, if you go with a pre-made power station (like EcoFlow), then you gain AC power, app control and firmware updates, and the ability to wall-charge it at home (fastest is 1500w, charges the whole Delta 2 and add-on in like 2hrs). The downside is the cost.
Both systems can be charged via DC-DC and solar, so there’s no edge here from on to the other.
Thank you.
That helps a lot …I was trying to decide on a backup plan…my power bank broke on a month long trip and only way to get it fixed was mailing it in.
But after looking at the weight a duel battery adds and having to figure out a spot for a dcdc charger…I might end up just getting a 500 to 700wh small power bank for infield emergency…
I saw Craft Auto works had a a power system with a dcdc charger built in and plenty of 12v cigarette plugs but idk kinda on the expensive side…
a dc-dc is not that bulky. you can mount it anywhere. a 100A LiFEPO4 is like 20lb only.
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To free up the 12v cigarette lighter port on my River Pro, I swapped my Iceco VL45ProS cable to this and just use the DC5521 ports. I’m pretty sure your Ecoflow also has these ports. But not sure that your Iceco has the same plug as mine. Hope this helps!
same plug for the fridge. but im not so sure if the barrel plug can be securely connected when doing high speed offroading lol
i’ve gone through so many 12v ciggy plugs to find the one that stays connected even when the truck’s eating up the whoops.
just found out… Delta 2 DC5521 is rated at 3A max but my Iceco jp42 is rated at 6A…
got me excited there for a second
I’m 99% sure its the same as my VL45ProS and Ecoflow River Pro, but I haven’t had any issues. If I am going to run a diesel heater or my GFC Pro lights, I just switch the fridge over to Eco mode so it pulls less wattage. Might be worth a try, and if not just return it to amazon lol also, the barrel connectors will hold when you’re offroad, they take some force to pull in and out
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