Also, for what it's worth, the diode type isolator which most of us have, will leak current backwards and therefore will discharge your battery to ground, over time, if the battery is left in the circuit. So it's important to shut the battery switches off if using diode isolators. West Marine has been advocating battery "combiners" which do not have the voltage drop when charging and do not leak backwards. They have a big blurb on this in their current catalog. Joe & Debbie Engel Marine Computer Service, Inc. MV "Freda Fly" 40' Tollycraft Tri-Cabin Portland, OR > -----Original Message----- > From: Anne & Henri Monnier [SMTP:seaflat@mindspring.com] > Sent: Friday, May 08, 1998 3:03 PM > To: trawler-world-list@samurai.com > Subject: Adding batteries and inverter > > Bob & Deborah, > Without the diode isolators, all batteries would end up in a huge > parallel > connection, and any load would cause all of them to discharge. The > diode > isolators prevent this from happening. like you, I also have a > multi-bank > charger that is powered from shore or gen, all banks that are > connected to > it are also diode isolated (inside the charger itself). This means > that > there are actually duplicate charging paths on each battery bank. > Yea, that > 1 volt drop.... I have set the charger regulators so that they pump > out an > extra volt to cover for the loss. > >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- > >Anne & Henri Monnier > >m/v Sea Flat (50' Ocean Alexander Trawler > >sea_flat@mymail.com > >http://www.seaflat.com > >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- > > > >