urbanhermit Report post Posted February 4, 2021 Two 12-volets for chassis of appropriate power for a diesel, four 6-volt golf carts for house, all six wet cell, battery isolator between the banks. What would be the wisdom of bypassing the isolator during lay-up with a short jumper and connecting one charging source? Would a trickle charger be sufficient assuming no parasitic loads? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wildebill308 Report post Posted February 4, 2021 Never tried it. I just plug in and let the charger handle both banks. Bill Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hermanmullins Report post Posted February 4, 2021 My inverter only charges my house batteries so I have a battery maintainer, trickle charger, that is plugged into my block heater plug. The block heater plug is only live (when turned on), and plugged into shore power or the generator is running. Since using this setup I have had no battery issues. Herman Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
richard5933 Report post Posted February 4, 2021 Really all depends on what you have set up for a charger. Likely it would be okay for storage purposes assuming that they are all the same battery chemistry - wet cell, AGM, etc. I do something similar when in storage joining my generator's start battery to my house battery bank, all being maintained by my 4-stage smart charger. My chassis battery bank is 24v so it has its own smart charger connected. Trickle charge is somewhat of a troublesome term to me, as for some it means a charger capable of only able to put out a limited current flow and for others it means a charger only able to put out a limited voltage. The biggest factor in maintenance charging is to keep the voltage at the correct level so you don't boil your batteries but still maintain enough voltage to prevent deterioration while in storage. My charger/converter has a float charge of 13.2v which keeps things from deteriorating but is a low enough voltage as to not really consume much water at all. It goes up to 14.6v for 15 minutes a day to prevent sulfation over a long storage period. The batteries will not be pulling very much current at all during storage - only enough to make up for any parasitic drain on them from the few control panels still active in the coach. An alternative way to accomplish what you want is to install something like an Echo charger. These devices will take a small percentage of the current going to your house batteries and divert it to the chassis batteries whenever the house bank is charging. I've used one in the past and it worked well, but in the end there were too many moving pieces and places for failure so I ended up simplifying things by just combining my generator start battery and house battery bank while in storage. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dons2346 Report post Posted February 4, 2021 You can install a battery combiner such as this and it will take care of chassis battery charging. Magnum Battery Combiner Or install one of these and accomplish the same thing. Echo Charger My coach came with the Echo charger and it has worked fine for the past 20 years Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
urbanhermit Report post Posted February 8, 2021 Thanks to all responders. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
