Smart Dual Battery 140A Isolator - Auto/Boat/RV, Model: VSR12, Car & Vehicle Accessories / Parts

I am using this in a Ford e350 van, converted to a camper, to maintain the truck battery under the hood and maintain 2 deep cell marine batteries in the back, which i run a fridge/micro, etc. with using a 1500 watt inverter. I was told by many old school camper guys this setup wouldn't work, but it works great! The VSR is small and lightweight, and simple to hookup and use. It has one simple LED light letting you know where it's sending voltage. Proper gauge wire is imperative, i have 6 gauge run to all batteries, with a 150 amp ANL fuse, and have had no trouble at all with this unit. I returned a much larger, heat synced Northern tool unit after i saw the difference in size. This one is great under the hood of a van or any tight space. Word of note: I did have to trim some of the plastic away where my wires run in and out of the unit. It's 2 pieces and you have to trim away part of the cover if you're using proper gauge wire to get it to sit on the base correctly. This will make sense when you see the unit in person, and it's pretty obvious the manufacturer intended for you to cut or drill depending on your application.

I purchased this VSR to isolate a battery in my truck camper. It is a little more expensive than a conventional battery isolator but it is smaller and easier to connect. I have tested it with my volt meter and thus far it has worked perfectly. It turns on at 13.3 volts (which protects your aux battery from being used as a starting battery by switching on only once the staring battery is fully charged). And cuts out at 12.8 volts (which keeps you from draining your starting battery when using your aux battery without the engine running). A nice feature is a little LED light that indicates when it's engaged. Also, it's rated for 140 amps, which is well over my electrical needs. There is an option to buy this same VSR with a kit, but I opted not to buy the kit because I needed higher gauge wire, and I could get it at a lower overall cost. Because of the thicker wire, I had to modify the wire inlets a little, but it was easy. I would recommend this product to anyone looking to isolate a battery.

Worked great while it lasted ... about two months into operation I serviced my truck myself during which I disconnected the negative battery pole from the under the hood battery but not the auxiliary battery in my truck berd since it's not connected to anything in the truck. When I was done with work and connected the batteries back again this unit did not come on since. I wrote and email to the seller but he did not respond. As much as I like this device, it's functionality, size, and even the design (the blue light looks cool when I show people the system and the whole isolator glows blue). Maybe I just had bad luck with this unit. Anyways I cannot with good concise spend another $80 and have it fail again, so I'm trying my luck with another manufacturer. EDIT: I was wrong, and I'm sorry. While working on the truck I discovered something that a friend changed in the wiring that I was not aware of during the job mentioned above ... after fixing that issue the Smart Dual Battery Isolator came back to life and all is well. So I admit to my mistake in accusing this product of not working properly when in fact it did and it was my bad.

I've been running this battery isolator in my truck for about 4 years now to keep my starting battery separate from my auxilliary battery in my overlanding truck. Performance-wise, I've never had any complaints. It works as advertised, and the drop across it when the batteries are in parallel is small. However, I went to do some work under the hood recently, and noticed that the plastic housing had become very deformed in the 4 years since I last took a close look at it. It's all droopy and no longer anything near square. It was mounted under the hood, but not particularly close to the exhaust. It shouldn't have gotten any hotter than any component under there. To the manufacturer's credit, it's still working like a champ. I'm not going to remove it from the system, as it's still going strong. But I would recommend not mounting in a place that's likely to see high heat. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another, provided I wasn't mounting it under the hood of a car.

Used this for a duel battery I have in my 2500 Chevy truck. Easy to install and so far so good.

This is not your father's isolator. This is a smart device which senses both batteries and if either one is receiving a charge, it will enable charging of both. Most importantly if you park your tow vehicle and shut down the motor so it is no longer providing current to charge both batteries, it will isolate them and protect your starting battery. Without the isolation, devices in your boat/camper can discharge both batteries and you will be unable to start in the morning when you are ready to get the day going. I have had this happen to me. This is not just an old fashioned isolator which uses diodes and actually reduces the amount of current available to charge the batteries. That is why those older style isolators have such a large heat sink (the finned aluminum base) to dissipate the wasted energy. Notice that this isolator does not have, and does not require, a heat sink because it uses a relay that it closes or opens and has no energy loss due to internal resistance. So yes, it is a little more costly than the older "diode" isolators, but it will do a much better job protecting your batteries!