The concept of an auxiliary or house battery is that some load will be on
the house battery and the loads needed for driving remain on the chassis
battery. If everything is still working including the ignition circuits
with the chassis battery disconnected tells me that the two batteries are
simply wired in parallel. All this does is give you more time before you
are stranded with two dead batteries. Also, if wired this way, both
batteries should be a matched set.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
PB
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 3:02 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Aux. Battery Works! Yay!

I was just about to have my auxiliary battery wired to power the interior
lights, fridge, and stereo when hubby told me to test it by disconnecting
the main battery.  What a great surprise to see everything working,
including the ignition - with the + battery cable disconnected!  Now I can
invest that money in poptop shocks and a sunroof!

My current aux. battery is an "Orbital" Deep Cycle, but I couldn't see any
specs on it (it was already dark and I was using a flashlight.)  The
battery
is a little too tall and sticks above the cavity, but the previous owner
built a neat little cover for it.

I left the Dometic on for over an hour to see if it worked.  The battery
light on the side of the stove was green, but it didn't get cold at all,
so
I turned it off.  Will the Vitrifrigo start getting cold right away on 12
v?  And how long will it run from the aux battery if the van is parked?

Another thing I noticed - with the poptop up, right above the rear door,
after the upper bed is folded down, there is a fairly large rectangular
pocket of space available for storing soft goods.

I'm glad hubby told me to check out the battery situation.  When I first
got
the van, I had several weeks of battery problems because I didn't know
that
I had to use the kill-switch to turn off the radio.  I actually thought I
had checked out the aux battery at that time, but I guess I didn't.

Patti
90 Westy Automatic