hooking up battery charger

[alpine99]

i need to know how to hook up a battery charger . on a 1999 alpine 36 sds it has two 12 volt 8d xhd inerstate workhorse batteries . all i can fine shows 4 or 6 6 volt units i need to get it started so i can get to the shop its all i can do to lift one end they must weigh 70 to 100 pounds each thanks for any help.

[EngineerMike]

I assume the two 12V batteries are hooked up (+) to (+) and (-) to (-), giving you 2 times the battery capacity at 12V. Hook your charger up to one of the battery's terminals, red to (+) and black to (-). The short cables connecting the two batteries together won't represent much resistance (assuming they are not corroded on or into their ends) and that should charge both batteries sufficiently close to equally to do the job.

[Algoma]

There are 2 12v batteries and they do separate functions. There should be a label at the front showing one is the "chassis" and the other is the "house". You only need to charge the chassis battery to start the engine. I have the same 8D batteries on my coach and they do weigh 100lbs each. I changed mine to AGM batteries some years ago and if yours are the originals they are long overdue for replacement.

[Jeff and Cheryl]

Ditto what Algoma said. Plus the battery closest to the rear of the coach is the chassis battery.

[EngineerMike]

If what Jeff says is true, front- House, rear- Start, then what I said isn't right. To get the engine started, hook the charger up to the rear battery. To get the House battery up to speed hook up to the front . this assumes there is no functional intertie till late in the charging cycle or maybe none at all.

Jeff- under what conditions does your setup charge both batteries? e.g. on mine (Vansco multiplexing) the engine will charge both batteries while running, the inverter/charger will charge both banks after the House bank gets up to a certain level, the generator will power the inverter/charger & will charge both banks after the House bank gets up to a certain level.

[Jeff and Cheryl]

Mike,
Charging of batteries is like yours. The only charging difficulty I've found is engine does not do a very good job of charging the house battery (have had issue with low house battery after a day of travel). This has not been enough of a problem to warrant a BSWOM. The eco charger that came on some of the early coaches was removed by a previous owner so as best I can tell, when plugged into power the engine battery does not recieve charge.