Just a quick question. Since my alternator on the 85 Regal died, the Barth has been hooked up to shore power in Tennessee. We switched the "aux" switch on, thinking by doing this, all three batteries, the one chassis battery and the two coach batteries, would all be charged by the converter. Did we do something bad? For the converter to charge all three, do you have to have the aux switch on? If we did something bad, we're probably dead now. The converter does have an intel-gizmo on it that's supposed to prevent over charging. Both volt meters show something like 13.5 volts.

I can't speak to Barths in particular, but most emergency start switches close a relay, which is probably not designed for continuous use. At worst, that relay might be bad. If it still works, it'll probably continue to work.

You wouldn't have done any damage to the isolator.

Better is to invest in a set of jumper cables (cheap ones will do fine,as the charger won't put out enough current to matter) and connect the house and engine batteries.

Do not make this connection with the converter charger plugged into 120VAC, Open the compartment door and leave the converter off for 15 minutes. This will allow the hydrogen, liberated while a battery is charging, to escape.

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Rusty

StaRV II, '94 28' Breakaway, 6.5L TD
2 Not-spoiled Golden Retrievers.

If I tell the son in law to turn the aux switch off, and leave the Barth plugged in to shore power, which batteries will the converter charge?

Probably only the house batteries. However, on my SOB, there's a lead from the fuse panel to the engine battery, so the charger does keep it topped off.

I haven't been through my Breakaway's wiring yet, so I don't know if the converter charges the engine battery.

One quick way to check with a decent voltmeter would be to disconnect 120VAC, check the engine battery voltage, then plug the 120VAC in again and see if the voltage has risen. Turning on a load like the headlights should make the difference in voltage more apparent.

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Rusty

StaRV II, '94 28' Breakaway, 6.5L TD
2 Not-spoiled Golden Retrievers.

I have used the same setup to keep my batteries topped off when not in use. My charger/converter is a Freedom Inverter and like yours it stops putting out 110VAC at 11.3VDC.
I am guessing your battery switch is not a parallel switch but a selector, 1,2,all, type. I use the same and have no problem with the charger etc. You will need to deselect one or the other battery bank when running the genset since it probably is set to charge one or the other banks. This will confuse many inverter/chargers and discharge will result. I am not sure if other unwanted things happen.
I dislike isolators, they drop voltage, fail etc. This may or may not have a part in your problem.
Not sure if any of this helps but it may be worth what you paid.
Best of luck,
Tim