Until today my second battery was only charged when I ran the engine and 
since I am hanging out in one place a lot right now (thanks to the amazing 
wnc weather and recreation!) my battery hasn't been seeing much time at full 
charge. As I understand it that will eventually ruin a battery so I set up a 
charger that will automatically charge/maintain the house battery whenever I 
plug the van in. Someone might have already posted a better alternative 
solution but I wanted to share some photos in case anyone needed some more 
ideas for a similar charging setup. The charger was about 18 bucks at 
wal-mart and the only other part that I needed was some double adhesive 
velcro that used to stick the charger to the shelf. The only real 
modification that I made was cutting the loop end off of the lead wire on 
the dc side so that I could insert it into the fuse connection for the house 
power. Installation was very easy and quick and only took ten or fifteen 
minutes.
 See the charger setup photos at:
 http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=1453584<http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?selected=1453583&foldername=charger>
 Also if you want to see the shower system that I use go to:
 
http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?selected=1453583&foldername=Shower
 Jonathan Poole
'82 ac westy