[A/S] Intellipower hookup question

[Stan Nicholson <stan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

David -

I put an Intellipower in our '72 Overlander about a year ago, and 
it's been great in combination with solar and new batteries (2 6Vs). 
Yes, you can use the tow vehicle alternator to charge the trailer 
batteries. Use a battery isolater in the tow vehicle - that will 
allow a charge to flow from the alternator to the trailer, but will 
not permit flow in the other direction. There are lots of isolaters 
out there, but a word of caution - cheap ones (and some expensive 
ones) use diodes as the one-way "valve", which can cause substantial 
voltage drop as the current passes through them, which means very low 
charging rates for the trailer battery from the tow vehicle 
alternator.  I wound up purchasing an isolater from Hellroaring 
Technologies (http://www.hellroaring.com/), who claim to have 
negligible voltage drop. (Great name, eh? Has to do with their 
Montana location). To tell the truth, with the solar setup I can't 
really tell whether the charging line from the tow vehicle is making 
any real difference in the trailer batteries' state of charge, but I 
feel good about the arrangement anyway.

Stan
1972 Overlander
1996 K2500 Sub