LuigiVampa

I only used my pickup truck every few weeks and am getting tired of dead batteries.

I was thinking about mounting a dual battery charger in the truck like the following:


The only problem is that the engine compartment doesn't appear to have any spare room. Anyone mount a charger like this and have any ideas?

techno99

If your truck is outside, you could try something like this
Cheap solar panel
I use it on my truck (2500 Dodge diesel) for up to a month with no issues.

skxf430

Just hook up a Battery Tender with a pigtail to your battery. I have that on my truck and keeps my battery fresh.

spg993tt

go solar. i just put a $200 , 100Watt solar setup on my atc trailer. works perfect. not a ton of amps but i dont drain the battery othe than just sitting, led lights or winch. and for my truck i got the same thing with a suitcase panel i just leave in the windshield area.
its just anough juice that the battery stays topped up.
so much better than having to run a wire particularly for the trailer.

LuigiVampa

I park my truck and trailer in the shade so solar isn't going to help me. I keep my trailer on a trickle charger and what I am looking to do is permanently mount a charger to keep the two batteries in the F350 alive.

There is power where I keep my trailer and F350 so keeping the plugged in is not a problem. I just don;t want to have to open the hood of the F350 and hook up the charger every time. I want a plug hanging out and just plug it in when I know I am not going to be using it for a while.

Matt Romanowski

Use something like this http://products.batterytender.com/Ch...emisphere.html

It's IP67 so it's safe to mount in the engine compartment (not next to the exhaust manifold), it's got a long AC cord, so run that to the grill and cover with something like this

Dave DE

In your first post you mentioned a dual charger. If your F350 is like my F250, the batteries are wired in parallel so only one charger is needed.

An alternative to having the charger in the engine compartment and running the AC cord thru the grille is to run a 12V wire pair from the battery thru the grille, which allows the charger to stay outside of the truck. I have a NOCO 7.2A charger on my truck wired this way. Here are some options: https://no.co/products/accessories/x-connect

Also, whatever wire you run thru the grille I suggest having some sort of sign that you can see from the drivers seat to remind you the truck is hooked up to something. (voice of experience)

LuigiVampa

I'm thinking you are correct. So long as the unit I buy is waterproof I can just have the wire hanging out and plug it in that way.

Additionally, when I have charged recently, after the batteries have gone dead from sitting, I have charged them in parallel - one wire on the positive on one battery and the other wire of the negative of the other battery.

Nono looks pretty good - never heard of them before.