winter trickle charging

[rickC]

I retired in 2005 and bought a new 05 Hawk and and 05 Toyota Tundra. FWC did the installation in Talent, Oregon.
My Hawk was outfitted with a blue Optima battery which is still in use. I put in about 140 days of camper use from
May-Nov. Winter time gets little use other than a few days here and there. The camper is stored in a large pole barn
that has power available. Was interested in running a trickle charger on the truck battery. Would this also charge
the camper battery? What are all my options here without taking out both battery's? Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[billharr]

Get a Battery Tender or other good float charger. These you can leave on all the time. I hook mine up once a month as I use it on my motorcycle too. I do have the IOTA smart charger (easy to add if you have an IOTA unit) but have not tested it to besure it goes to float.

http://www.iotaengineering.com/iq.htm

EDIT:
Just realized you were talking about both truck and camper battery. You could bypass what every you have for an isolator. May or may not work correctly depends on the type and age of the two batteries. A lot of variables.

Two float chargers and no problem.

 

[Desert Rancher]

5-6 years on a battery s/b considered a good life.

A new one next season would be a good idea

 

[buckland]

I have an Eagle. It's stored in the garage for the New England winter. I put my solar panel in the garage window and installed an external plug on the camper. I now have a constant charge to both camper batteries. I put the panel on a tripod when camping with a 15ft cord to plug in; keeps the camper in the shade and the panel in the sun. All is well.

 

[busboy66]

Like Bill said, two different batteries = two trickle chargers - get the battery tender type as they are a smart charger. They are pretty cheap ~ $10

 

[JohnF]

If your camper came with a modern converter/charger it most likely will float. Check it to make sure, but then just plug the camper in.

Get a battery tender/minder for the truck or if you have a smart charger that floats use that. It is not unusual to install the battery minder permanently so you just plug in the camper and plug in the truck and come back in the spring.

 

[Walldiver]

Rick, If you have the IOTA, get the IQ4 smart add on, its cheap $25 and keep connected to your Optima in the camper. You did'nt mention what the truck battery is, I would assume that it is the stock wet cell. I agree with the others, get a cheaper tricle charger for the truck battery.

When I was using a wet cell starting battery in my boat with 2 AGM Diehards as my house bank, I installed a Xantrex XC3012 smart charger which is programmable to charge wet, gel and AGM. Quite pricey $400 plus if you get online.

When I got the camper went with 2 AGM Lifelines and wanted to go with a Xanterx charger to charge them instead of the IOTA. I did not want to put out the cash for another XC and went with a Truecharge 2 since I was only charging the 2 AGMs and not the truck battery. I went with the 40amp for a faster charge. Got the Truecharge online for a little under $300.