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Hi Lobey I like the idea of what you are trying to do. But one problem I think that you will mite face is that your alternator in your car will not be big enough to power all the car electricts and a charger all the time wile you are driving around.

It takes alot of power out of a battery every time you stats the engine, and while the engine is running it will charge it back up, even when you are driving at night with all the lights and raido and heaters on maby even the A/C. the alternator has to run all that and as well charge the battery for the next time you start the engine. And if you want to be charging another battery all the time the alternator will be under perssure. Also you would want to be doing alot of driving at one time eg, at least 1/2 an hour to an hour at a time to get any charge up( not just 5 mins here and 5 mins their)

So maby if you got a highter amp alternator fitted to your car it mite work.

One other thaught  is to buy a silent running Jenny (Honda do one)and use this to charge your battery in your van for a few hours during the day. This should keep you going through the night.

Thanks Andrew, I think I mentioned in an earlier post that a larger Alternator would always be an option if everything else worked out okay.

We are intending to draw the minimum of power from the van's battery and so it should last for 4 days anyway. During these 4 days, the battery in the car will remain there untouched but being charged every day we are out and about and it will very much depend on how much power is in that battery, before we decide to hook it up through the IniCharger to boost the caravan battery.

Once the car's engine is started, we will be using very little power from the car battery. We are taking about during the summer and touring about sight seeing.
We do not do that at night, or listen to the radio or have heaters, demisters or anything else on.

From past experience with the UniCharger it works well and can fully charge a flat leisure battery over 2 nights.

Back in our campervan days we tried Gennies but did not like them and even although they may be quieter now, the idea of running a petrol engine just to generate some electricty goes against our principles. I think I would rather use a bicycle and a dynamo or a big hamster wheel and fling the 2 dogs in.

Looking at past caravan trips, they usually consist of a couple of days towing where the van's battery is being charged up as we drive along, then a week on a site, where we will be topping up the caravan battery every 3 days of so, then another couple of days towing followed by another week on a site, and so on for a month of 5 weeks.

Whilst I do have some bits of Camping Equipment that runs solely on Mains, I would only use this during the winter months and only until I can find the same thing powered by an alternative power source. I dislike being dictated to by the sellers of caravan equipment as to what kind of sites I camp on.

Quote: a big hamster wheel and fling the 2 dogs in.