S-Class (W221) 2007-2013: S 320 CDI, S 350, S 450, S 500, S 550, S 420 CDI, S 600

Trickle Charge Battery From Trunk, Options?

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Old Jan 25, 2022 | 04:19 PM
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Trickle Charge Battery From Trunk, Options?

All of my other cars have rear batteries but this one has the MB single battery system (under dash and hood, no trunk battery) and the front trickle charging is crimping my style. I can charge via the cigarette lighter in the trunk but it's switched so only works when ignition is on. On my c219 I can swap some fuses and get always-on cigarette power if I want. Is this an option on w221?
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Old Jan 26, 2022 | 07:20 AM
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2013 S550 4MATIC
Originally Posted by silvertonesx24
All of my other cars have rear batteries but this one has the MB single battery system (under dash and hood, no trunk battery) and the front trickle charging is crimping my style. I can charge via the cigarette lighter in the trunk but it's switched so only works when ignition is on. On my c219 I can swap some fuses and get always-on cigarette power if I want. Is this an option on w221?
This is how I keep mine charging. Also via under the hood battery....

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Old Jan 26, 2022 | 09:17 AM
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Someone is going to complain you connecting ground to the battery pole instead of chassis ground. I'd say either way is fine because this is a maintenance charger and only charges the battery when the car is parked. In this case the car is not monitoring battery charging via the sensor at the ground pole anyway.
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Old Jan 26, 2022 | 10:01 AM
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2013 S550 4MATIC
Originally Posted by Diesel Benz
Someone is going to complain you connecting ground to the battery pole instead of chassis ground. I'd say either way is fine because this is a maintenance charger and only charges the battery when the car is parked. In this case the car is not monitoring battery charging via the sensor at the ground pole anyway.
Lol I am sure but you stand corrected sir 👍
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Old Jan 26, 2022 | 02:06 PM
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I would think the starting battery would be good for a long time if it was fully charged before being parked. Isn't it isolated from the rest of the car precisely to avoid it becoming discharged and the car not starting?
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Old Jan 26, 2022 | 02:18 PM
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Originally Posted by kevm14
I would think the starting battery would be good for a long time if it was fully charged before being parked. Isn't it isolated from the rest of the car precisely to avoid it becoming discharged and the car not starting?
On a pre-facelift W221 indeed no need to have a maintenance charger on the starter battery (easily survives 6+ months). The idle current is drawn from the consumer battery.
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Old Jan 26, 2022 | 11:26 PM
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Originally Posted by Diesel Benz
Someone is going to complain you connecting ground to the battery pole instead of chassis ground. I'd say either way is fine because this is a maintenance charger and only charges the battery when the car is parked. In this case the car is not monitoring battery charging via the sensor at the ground pole anyway.
The chassis pole on the strut tower is connected directly to the negative post. It's the same thing. So, anyone who wants to "complain" about that obviously has no idea what they are talking about.
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Old Jan 27, 2022 | 01:59 AM
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Originally Posted by Senecat
The chassis pole on the strut tower is connected directly to the negative post. It's the same thing. So, anyone who wants to "complain" about that obviously has no idea what they are talking about.
I didn't know this would be so difficult to so many on the forum. The chassis pole is not connected directly to the battery negative pole. There is the B95 battery sensor in-between. A very low resistance device but the usual argument is that the car is monitoring battery charging and if you charge the battery "from pole-to-pole", the car cannot measure the charge current to the battery. This is a problem sometimes but mainly if high current consumers were connected to the negative pole, like high power after market audio amplifiers that are used while the car is driven.

See B95 on the diagram. B95 is the small sensor attached to the battery negative pole. The battery ground wire is not connected to the negative pole but the B95 sensor.

EDIT: having a second look after the comment from kevm14, the diagram has a constraint telling the ground side sensor is installed only on specific models, pre-facelift and facelift.

Last edited by Diesel Benz; Jan 27, 2022 at 09:58 AM.
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Old Jan 27, 2022 | 07:56 AM
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I can tell you the rear battery on a pre-facelift W221 is grounded directly to the body. However it looks like the positive cable comes from some module and I'm not sure what that module is. But since it's on the + side, I would just connect a charger directly to the posts, for the rear battery, since there is no ground side monitoring.
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Old Jan 28, 2022 | 12:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Diesel Benz
I didn't know this would be so difficult to so many on the forum.
Oh, the irony.

https://www.google.com/search?q=w212...&bih=955&dpr=1
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Old Dec 27, 2023 | 08:08 AM
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Trickle Charger in Trunk

I have used a trickle charger on the trunk battery of my 1989 560SL for a few years now and it seems to work fine. I even installed the extension that Kent Bergstrom demonstrated on the Mercedessource.com website. It made it easy to connect without having to open the battery box.
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Old Dec 27, 2023 | 01:55 PM
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Well those pics do show some sort of module, esp the ones from FCP Euro. So maybe some models have that little module. So do you connect to the post then bypassing /avoiding the module? would that even work?
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