burningman wrote:
How do you suppose the truck’s main batteries ever get charged?
I’m gonna say the alternator does it. And if you connect the camper batteries in parallel, they get charged just the same.
The regulator drops the voltage as the load decreases, which happens as the batteries get charged up. When you connect the camper batteries, and they’re low, it puts more load on the alternator EXACTLY like when the main starting batteries are low.
The alternator just sees the whole bank of however many batteries are connected as one big battery.
Exactly, and those high amp demands on the alternator kills the diodes, one at a time, over long or short period. Testing for DC voltage with one diode burnt or partially burnt won't show a bad alternator, yet can raise raise the AC ripple to damaging level.
