On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:31:46 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:37:04 -0000, wrote:

Okay - I'm new to boating, just bought my first. The guy I bought it
from has two batteries in the boat - a deep-cycle marine battery for
the starter, and a regular car and truck battery for the tilt motor,
lights, radio, etc. (both are 12 volt). The marine battery charges
itself from the magnets, but right now, the car battery just runs
itself down and has to be recharged frequently.

This doesn't seem efficient. Can I hook the batteries in together so
that the magnets are charging both at the same time? Or is it bad to
hook a marine and car/truck battery together? If I understand
batteries (and I'm not sure that I do!) I could connect the positive
terminal of the marine to the negative of the car/truck and that'd do
it. Is that right? Or would that screw with the voltage?

How should I approach this?

The easiest and cheapest solution is something called a combiner. It
is an automatic switch relay that will connect the two batteries in
parallel when there is sufficient charging voltage, and automatically
disconnect them when there is no charging voltage present. They are
inexpensive and easy to install, much easier and more fool proof than
an A/B switch.

Here's an example:

http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|328|51495|606044&id=605576

or

http://tinyurl.com/2gsqak

That's what I was looking for - I couldn't remember if it was an
isolator or combiner.

Man, I'm getting old.