Charging Question?

[martinciarpella]

Gentlemen, I need some help with charging an isolated house bank from port engine altenator which is already charging the crank battery.

The house bank is currently grounded to the port engine. Can I attach to the altenator with a solenoid switch between in order to close off the crank battery when the engine is not running? as to not drw from the crank battery.

With this I think when the engine is running and the solenoid is open both the crank and house batteries will be paralleled and charge simultaniously.
House power would actally be draw from both house and crank but will have constant charge from altenator.

Would the altenator know when batteries are full?
Would they infact be paralleled?

above all, will this work or not

Any help is always appreciated.

[Kevin]

I would recommend purchasing two BlueSeas Automatic Charging Relays (ACR). THey are simple to hook up and work great for what I beleive you are trying to accomplish. Either alternator would charge the house and disconnect automatically when alternators are not putting out the juice. While on the hook using the house battery your starting batteries would not be affected, unless of course you had other accesories hooked to them.

[martinciarpella]

Thanks Kevin, I found a vsr relay that will do what we need.