Is anyone familiar with hooking up car batteries? I want to add an addditional accessories battery to the car for watching movies and having heat/ac on without draining the starter battery.

Where would i put this battery and would i have to build a protective box.mount for it?

How would i hook it up to charge when the car is started and how to set up the indash and ac to take current from there? Thanks!

 

You should just get a new alternator. If you have two batteries your alternator is not going to be able to handle 2 batteries.

 

The alternator should be fine to run two batteries. You have to use a relay in order to charge both of the. If you're going to put the second battery in the passenger compartment (in the erar hatch area I'm assuming) you need a SEALED battery box. This is to protect you against the fumes. Make sure you adaquately ventilate it.

 

what are other options i can go toward to running ac and dvd player with the car off?

 

For running accessories and extra electronics, i'd suggest a gel-cell battery hiding in the rear hatch. I had one in my old car because my system used to drain so much energy the amp kept cutting out and it worked beautifully afterwards. You most likely will have to upgrade to a high-amp alternator to keep both batteries fully charged, but it should take care of having enough energy for whatever else you want to add.

 

First off, running the air conditioning requires the engine to be running to turn the A/C compressor...

As to powering additional electronics, the RV folks have had that all taken care of for years - simple bolt-in/wire-in solid-state controllers that properly handle the two batteries for charging, and prevent the 'starting' battery from being run down by accessories. Check with some RV places.

You may or may not need a higher capacity alternator - I'm not sure how stout the one in the tC is - I'm a box herder.

 

If it's at a show, I'd suggest something such as a power invertor that you can plug into an extension cord or whatever (outlet). Keep it hidden but still powering it.