Re: Battery Isolators
What I learned about batteries, charging and onboard wiring, had isolators pop up as petty much a needless item. Boatist nailed it, maintaining you bats will increase their useful life. And the better maintained (fully recharged), the longer the bat life.<br /><br />To fully charge a bat w/o over charging, you need a 3-stage charger. The charging process passes thru stages of high amps/low voltage to low amp/high voltage to top off for a fully charged bat. This is something an alternator is not designed for, but a smart regulator is. This is why you cannot get a bat fully charged with your typical alternator alone. If you could, you would cook your batteries.<br /><br />Echo charging takes the regulated output and manages it for multi bank, 3-stage bat charging. There is no need for an isolator.<br /><br />I think what Boatist said about not taxing the alternators output cannot be over emphasized. You definitely need an alternator beefy enough to support the bats charging demand and/or the onboard amp draw. A regulator can monitor the alts output and temp to prevent potential damage. An echo charger does the same for input into the bats.<br /><br />Arcwinston what you are going toward is not ideal and does require an additional charging source be applied to the bats when you return, for it to be so. That said, the isolator will do no harm if the alt is up to the challenge. However, your isolator $$$ might be better spent investing in a good 3-stage charger for when you get back to the barn, presuming of course, you have an appropriately size deep cycle to meet your daily amp needs.
