I have used a trickle charger for basic recharging and battery maintenance duties, it has worked fine with one exception...they keep failing. I had a B&D charger hard wired in and it failed after a few months...the second one did not last that long. I replaced it with a Schumacher 6 amp'r....well...the trick is to disconnect the charger on the DC side before you start the engine...does not like it. Even off I could smell 'electric'...so I disconnect and now all is well.

John

----- Original Message ----
From: David Johnson <davidj@ELPASOTEL.NET>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 10:10:04 AM
Subject: Trickle Charger (follow up 182 Amps)

Ok, so thanks to all the list for the feedback on the RM 182 amps -
sounds like no matter what, the best I could hope for is a few hours
of fridge time.  Just so far have not gotten my fridge lit on propane
yet, so will probably have to pull it and clean out the combustion
chamber and try again.

So, with that out of the question, I am not sure a deep cycle battery
is worth it for the other 12v stuff.  So has anyone used any of the
trickle type chargers to keep a main battery up against a light
weight inverter.  I have seen them in the 2 watt trickle charge
range.  That seems awfully light weight, so has anyone used them to
try and keep up a main battery against moderate use (maybe a fan, a
couple hours of laptop draw for a movie, some lights).

Thanks again,
David.