Fitting a battery maintainer in a Zion Srt

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Murray

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Joined
Sep 23, 2018
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28
I have a Zion SRT 2018 with 2 ecotreks and 300w roof solar. Being a promaster the chassis battery doesn't last as long as I store it for, so I've bought a battery maintainer, which I want to connect to the solar and the chassis battery. Does anyone know where I would connect it on the solar/house battery side? I'd prefer not to carry another solar panel with me when I already have a roof full doing nothing in storage. I do mean actually where, not 'attach the wire to the positive terminal', but where is the connecting point and how do I get to it? TIA..
 
Sorry, but I'm still not clear on what advice you are looking for. The battery maintainer can attach to any convenient location on the positive side of the battery. And the maintainer module itself can be any convenient place while in storage.  Unless of course the maintainer is also solar, in which case it will be out in the sun. You appear to be aware of all that, so what help is it you are looking for?

 
Its the 'convenient location' bit that I'm struggling with. The AGM is as far back under the chassis as it can be and the chassis battery is under the drivers feet. Can you think of a place I can attach the maintainer to that will connect the 2 batteries. Is there a live connection to the AGM I can access either nearer the chassis battery or under the hood to get to the jumper points?
 
Took it to Van City. They offer a bit of kit to do this, but need to run a wire from the AGM to the chassis battery. They'll do it with my trik-l-start for 1.5 hours labor on a ramp. I still find it hard to believe this isn't done at build.
 
If they just hardwired the house battery to the chassis, the two systems would not be isolated form each other. Therefore you need either an isolator module/relay or a device like the Trik-L-Start to maintain isolation. That adds more than a few pennies to the build cost and the function is needed only when the rig is parked for lengthy periods without running the engine.  Roadtrek elected to save a few bucks, and they were not the only RV manufacturer to have done that. However, most all of the others have by now repented their sin and added the cross-connect feature.
 
It's OK, there's a Trik-L-Start between them. The AGM has a positive post accessible under the van about 3' from the rear and 2' from the left side, connected to that. Would have been difficult without a ramp or proper jacking system, seems good, the correct lights come on anyway! 1.7 hours labour though, so fitting was about 6x the cost of the part!
 
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