Starter Battery Trickle

patrick51 · 12-23-2008, 06:36 PM

MY starter battery does not seem to hold the charge as well as the house so in this cold winter weather I am considering a Battery Tender hooked directly to the starter battery. Any comments on whether this would effect the house battery/system as it will remain plugged in at the shore power point.

John Kalmbach · 12-23-2008, 10:13 PM

Your starting battery(s) should be getting charged when the house battery is being charged. The Battery Separator should be allowing current from the Converter/Charger, or Inverter/Charger, to flow to the starting battery(s) and keep them charged too.

Best to get a voltage reading when you're connected to shore power for both the house, and starting battery, to see what is actually happening.

John K.

jage · 12-23-2008, 10:17 PM

You can quickly check the voltage in the dashboard cigarette lighter for the engine and one of the wall cig lighter slots for the house battery. If there is charge going into the batteries it should show up on one of those cheapo cigarette lighter meters (although the meters can be off a few volts you'll have an idea if there is a difference)

adventureduo · 03-05-2009, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Kalmbach

Your starting battery(s) should be getting charged when the house battery is being charged. The Battery Separator should be allowing current from the Converter/Charger, or Inverter/Charger, to flow to the starting battery(s) and keep them charged too.

Best to get a voltage reading when you're connected to shore power for both the house, and starting battery, to see what is actually happening.

John K.

John, does every SMB come with a separator? Our 2003 does not charge the starting battery when plugged into shore power. Side note: We only have the standard isolator under the coolant reservoir and all that does is prevent the drain of the vans starting battery.

**daveb** · 03-05-2009, 03:54 PM

Dave an isolator and separator are to different pieces of equipment. A separator is a mechanical solenoid that has a circuit that measures the voltages. An isolator is a solid state device.

adventureduo · 03-05-2009, 04:01 PM

Yeah, i know the difference.. they're like apples and oranges.

But was wondering if all SMB's come with a separator? I don't think ours has one.

Just an isolator under the hood.

Scalf77 · 03-05-2009, 06:16 PM

I believe they went to the separator in 2004.

Greg

adventureduo · 03-05-2009, 08:30 PM

Of course they did! LOL

Ok, our 2003 was built in early 2004. Guess not early enough. According to John in the Gremlin post they started that in summer 04.

I guess i'll replace the old anodized isolator for the smarter separator... its worth it to be able to start the truck off the house batteries.