Guest Automatic 5/10 Amp Charger

[truk4u]

Paul is correct, if your green/red light are on together, there's something wired wrong. It should take about 12 hrs to get from red to float (green) the first time you plug it in. All of this is assuming you bought the 10 amp 2611.

I simply wire them to use the 12v function by charging two sets of batteries (that's 4 batteries) hooked in parallel by the two Guest leads that in turn charge all four batteries.

Forget what I have done if your confused and stick with Mango's deal, but you have something wrong if your green/red.

[Danss]

I hooked mine up per Truk's diagram. Works great! Dan

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Bruce,

This is not apples and oranges.

Both Mango and Truk accomplish the same thing. Mango makes the charger a 24 volt charger using his method. Truk keeps the charger as a two circuit 12 volt charger. But both are doing exactly the same thing. Pick one and do not deviate.

Either connect to the batteries at the 24 volt posts and use Mango's, or hook up to the 12 volt (2 sets of 2 batteries) and use Truk's.

If your bus is set up so the house inverters are maintaining a charge on the chassis batteries via some interconnection between the two sets, step back, and reconsider why you are using the charger, and if you still decide to use it, making two sources independent of each other charging your batteries, you need to verify that no voltages are other than what they want to be. If you fail to do that I see more battery purchases in your future.

Ka-ching.

[truk4u]

Good point by Jon! Do not run the charger via your inverters, that caused wierd things to happen on my Marathon like the house lights pulsating. You must use a dedicated 120 volt power source such as the block heater that will not run through the inverter.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I wasn't talking about that, but was going by Bruce's post a while back that indicated he had some type of set up that can tie his house and chassis battery systems together.

But you are correct. Tying a charger to inverters is akin to trying to pick yourself up off the floor by pulling up on your socks.

[0533]

Ok, let me respond to each:

first lets be completely clear on what unit and how the lights should read out and what each means at what point during the charge, see diagrams.

The lighting diagram indicates that when the Red/Grn are on together the batteries are at the "Finishing" stage no a problem , I do not believe.

Let me respond to Jon's Questions: The chassis batteries are getting charged via the regulator when the House side is calling for a charge while on inverter power only (no shore/Generator) running down the highway. The regulator is set to max out at 27V and the chassis side works nicely under these conditions. The Isolator and the battery balancers are at work as well, no issues here

[truk4u]

The batteries were reading 27.5 on the finish RED/GRN 13.75 on 12V, seems about right.

If it's steady green your good, the above is what you said..

[0533]

Your right Tom, those are my readings.

I think I am good to go.

My concern in the first place came about as a result of 2 reasons. I use my genset some times while running down the road, noticed the chassis side voltage dropping (settling down to the uncharged values), finally realized the alternator/regulator does not charge the chassis side when the genset is on, as there is no demand from the house batteries to the regulator/alternator because they are charged from the genset.

PS> there is no inter connect between the house and chassis side, used to be when I had the old isolator that had the ability to allow the owner to push a switch at the dash, and allow for a momentary connection to the house side to supply starting power to the dead chassis batteries. This isolation failed and fryed my chassis batteries over time.

it is a bit screwy (Marathon created this connection for single alternator buses), So while out last summer decided to pick up a battery charger in Angola while having a broken window changed, but it was not automatic, all they had available, big pan in the Ass.

I also noticed that my chassis batteries were running down too quickly while sitting, and without an automatic charger it is impossible to know when to address the need.

I am pleased with this install as my batteries are all brand new, am not interested in frying them with incorrect power.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

If running your generator while the engine runs stops the charging current from reaching your chassis batteries you have a problem or a serious design issue.

In either case, whatever the cause something is screwed up. It is screwed up big time because I can be hooked to shore power, running my engine, and with the generator running and my batteries are receiving the current they need. And so are everyone else's unless Marathon does something totally unique. And if they really designed it to work that way I would be very concerned about what they were thinking.

[truk4u]

Bruce, I'm really confused now! My 97 Marathon had one 270 amp alternator that charged the chassis batteries while running and charged the house via the inverters. Running the gen while under way with the bus did not take the chassis battery charging away from the alternator. The transfer switch would provide AC power from the gen to the house through the inverters (no bypass switch on mine), but would not knock off the chassis charging function of the 270 amp alternator. With the bus not running, the gen or shore power would provide the AC through the inverters for the house, but would not charge the chassis. My gen also was stand alone, no charging except while running or receiving the solar panel juice.

What you are saying, is if you were running at night with all lights on with the gen running, you would eventually run your chassis batteries dead! Something is really wrong with that picture!

The only reason I added the Guest was to periodically bring the chassis batteries up to full charge if setting in the barn for an extended period.

I'll just defer to you and Jon so as not to confuse the issue further.