[encantotom]

something to consider. when you are merged, there is constant voltage to the coil on the merge relay. for fun go back and see how hot it is.

it is a cole hersee 24106 continuous duty solenoid. so it can certainly stay on for long periods of time. is that 6 months at a time? seems like it can be because you are doing it. that is probably why newell recommends changing it once a year. i have changed mine once and keep a spare.

i personally dont like to have it on for months at a time. just my personal choice. i helped someone this week who had new starting batteries that were dead. (they were not plugged in) and when i had them check the merge switch (on theirs....emergency start) it was on and their house batteries were bad and drained the starting batteries.

the nice thing about using the AMP L START http://www.lslproducts.net/ALS_Overview_Page.html is that as long as the house batteries are charged or charging it will "steal" power from them to charge the starting batteries. it is smart enough to turn itself on and off based on the conditions of the house batteries. starting in the mid 90's and up they used a xantrex echocharger and it is a little less smart version of the amp l start.

so, no real wrong answer, you just have to understand what you are doing and manage to it.

the other thing in my case is i have agm batteries for the coach side and lead acid on the starting batteries.

when i set up the magnum inverter charger it asks for how many amp hours is your battery bank. if i had the battery banks merged, the answer would be different if i did not.

but i would be curious to know how warm your merge relay is from being on for months at a time.

later

tom