I am thinking about adding a outlet or 2 in the bed of the truck for camping and also some bed rail led lights for camping. My question is I was thinking about running it off of one of the Upfitter switches so I can turn off the lights and outlets, but do the Upfitters turn off after the ignition is turned off? Or if I keep the switch on the dash on will the power stay on with out the key?

 

They use keyed power.

 

Drat, not what I was hoping for. Thanks for the help eberlestock!

 

You could likely figure out how to dedicate an upfitter for hot without the key. It would just be used to power a relay. The problem is going to be draining the battery without the engine running. A dead battery after a night of drinking by the fire and your probably going to realize this is a bad idea.

 

I'm not too worried about running the battery down, you could run the bed led's for a week and not have problems.

 

put a water proof switch to a relay in the bed.....and I would use a battery isolator and an additional battery. there is plenty of room under the pax side for an e-350 ambulance battery box. you could run the hot to the isolator from the starter hot cable terminal. this will give you an always charge to the extra battery and never discharge from your main battery.

be advised AC outlets drain alot of power.....generally speaking....1000 watts of AC will require 100amps of battery power per hour. most group 34 batteries are less than 75amp hours so you would get about 45 minutes of run time on the battery.

a small generator is the way to go....2000w generator will run you about 300 bucks at harbor freight and if you place the gen 25ft away the noise wont bother you.

if you want to got with the AC inverter still....I would get 2 extra batteries...your cost would be something like

a. 2 batteries at 80 bucks each
b. 2 battery boxes at 40 each
c. a battery isolator at 80 bucks
d. 3 pairs of 6ft inverter cable at 35 bucks each
e. a 2000 watt inverter at 100 bucks each ..or 2 1500 watt inverters at 125 bucks each which is what I would do in case one craps out...and it will
f. 25 bucks for switches and outlets
g. 10 bucks for a good relay

your at 600 bucks for about 90 minuts of run time before the batteries crap out

vs 300 bucks for a generator that will run for 5 hours on a tank ful of gas.

 

Easy there big guy, 12v outlets, if I wanted an inverter I would just pull the travel trailer. My ARB Fridge/Freezer would run off my 2012 Jeep JK for 3 days without difficulty. Considering the battery in the SD is about the size of the engine of the Jeep, I don't feel there will be any problems with over discharging the battery with what I want.

 

What year/model truck do you have? I maybe able to assist.

 

You can take the relay out of the socket under the dash and jump the relay to have them always hot

 

I added a ARB 12v socket directly to the battery always hot mainly for use with a ARB refrig. See my build thread for details. The ARB fridge will shut off depending on the its setting if the battery gets too low. Whatever you do make sure you use hefty enough wire because they get finicky with too small gauge.

 

Thanks, but I had it wired the day after I found out the switches were keyed powered.