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i used to have a car charger connected through the mains onto the battery in my old van to keep the 12v working, never had any problems with it,

mike

this has a good report

http://www.busyoutdoors.com/shop/electrical-tv/electrical/multi-xs-3600-battery-charger/prod_155.html

When our KT12 charger failed last year in our old 1991 Swift Challenger I bought a smart battery charger from Halfords. I hard wired it into the incoming fused mains and direct to the battery with a toggle switch on the seat base so that we can 'isolate' charge to the battery from inside the van (i.e. same as charger being plugged in but not connected to battery).

Works really well on hookup and never had to use the toggle switch (apart from when van not being used to stop current drain). Keeps battery charged and runs appliances and of course drops into 'maintenance' mode when battery voltage shows full charge, and goes back to full charge mode when battery indicator approaches bottom of green section.

Battery indicator gets towards top of green area at the 'maintenance' stage but never off the scale so presume that its not giving higher than safe voltages to appliances.

Andy