Charging 2 "house 6 volt" batteries on Vehicle's alternator. Good/bad/possible?

[dwh]

Should be a good charger, but...um...103 bucks at NAWS...

http://www.solar-electric.com/pomax12vo35a.html

[AUTO360]

$103...hmm, think I might call batterystuff tomorrow and see why it was 1/3 more with them. maybe I can get some kind of refund, (holding breath).

[dwh]

Ok, 10-4 on the hydrogen rising. Now, question is if I vent it going up, well, where do I route it too. I'd rather not cut a hole in my roof

There's a bunch of ways to do it. Here's a couple of links:

http://www.oynot.com/battery-box-venting.html

http://www.bdbatteries.com/hydrogenventing.php

http://www.google.com/search?q=batte...w=1333&bih=620

[AUTO360]

dwh,

Ok, so I got this far but I had misunderstood a step. On my solenoid, on the small stud, I haven't run a wire to the Vans fuse box yet. I mistakenly thought it would go to my blue sea fuse box for my accessories. Anyway, after going back and rereading the thread you had posted I see what I did wrong. BUT.....since my solenoid only has 3 posts, do I need to also ground the solenoid since I have it mounted on wood(part of my bunk). In the pics you'll see that one cable is not hooked up to the solenoid....I just took it off momentarily.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]113564[/ATTACH

[AUTO360]

P7311873.jpg
I also put some silicon rubber tubing on my battery hold down to help protect it from contacting the terminals.

[AUTO360]

Also, if you look at the pic of my solenoid, the left side has my "house" batteries connection, and the right side has the positive connection coming from my starter batteries......I believe this is correct but I don't know how to check to make sure.

[dwh]

dwh,

Ok, so I got this far but I had misunderstood a step. On my solenoid, on the small stud, I haven't run a wire to the Vans fuse box yet. I mistakenly thought it would go to my blue sea fuse box for my accessories. Anyway, after going back and rereading the thread you had posted I see what I did wrong. BUT.....since my solenoid only has 3 posts, do I need to also ground the solenoid since I have it mounted on wood(part of my bunk). In the pics you'll see that one cable is not hooked up to the solenoid....I just took it off momentarily. [ATTACH=CONFIG]113564[/ATTACH

Yea, the two big studs are the batteries, the small stud is power from the ignition to energize the solenoid and tie the batteries, and the case of the solenoid needs to be grounded somewhere.

The ones with 4 connections (two big, two small) you don't have to ground the case - you ground the second small connection. They are designed for stuff like boats where the body is fiberglass and there is no chassis ground. If you had yours mounted under the hood to metal, it wouldn't need a ground wire, but bolted to wood like that you have to ground it.

[dwh]

P7311873.jpg
I also put some silicon rubber tubing on my battery hold down to help protect it from contacting the terminals.

Looks good.

[dwh]

Also, if you look at the pic of my solenoid, the left side has my "house" batteries connection, and the right side has the positive connection coming from my starter batteries......I believe this is correct but I don't know how to check to make sure.

Nothing much to check. The solenoid is just a big switch turned on by a smaller switch. All it does is tie the two batteries/banks into a single bank when the small terminal to the electromagnet inside is energized by power from the ignition.

So yea, from the large terminals - one to chassis battery, one to house battery. Small terminal gets power feed from ignition and then ground the case and it's done.


EDIT: Um...notice I said, "from ignition". The wire to the small terminal should only be energized when the key is turned to ignition. I.e., when the engine is running, or about to be started. Otherwise, it should not have power so the solenoid is not energized.

[AUTO360]

Ok, should be good to go tomorrow. I got held up the past couple days because the battery light on the dash came on and then batteries were going dead......ended being a bad alternator, so I installed a new today. I'm glad it happened now instead of after I finished all the wiring because then I might have thought there was a problem on my wiring.
So, just to be clear one thing.....on the solenoid, it would seem to me that it matters what side the "house" connects to and what side the starter batteries connect to. Is this correct? There is nothing on the solenoid indicating anything that would help answer this question.
10-4 on finding an ignition wire. Hot with key on only.