is run through an oil pressure switch on both of my regulators. When the engine is turned on the oil pressure switch is activated and the regulator starts it's "soft ramp up". That would be where to install the switch. If I put it there, it would just start the ramp up when the switch was activated instead of the oil pressure switch. Good thought. As far as the charging is concerned, I usually wait until the regulator has backed off a bit before starting the watermaker after I just get underway. Usually that's about an hour or so. I have AGM's as well and they will take everything I can give them. I could run both alternators at the same time but I have never found the need because at anchor I use the solar, wind and a small 3000 watt diesel generator to do the charging. It's less engine time on the main and less fuel. The hot water heater is also on the generator loop so it makes hot water both with the electric element and the heat exchanger so it pretty fast hot water. While at anchor we're pretty energy independent just with the wind and solar. I usually end up using the generator for the microwave in the morning and to heat up the water for a warm shower in the late afternoon. Even in the tropics I like a warm to cool shower at night. I usually run the generator for a half hour or so the take the edge off of a cold shower. I can make some water and put a few amps back while heating the shower water. I have 350 watts of Solar and a Kiss wind generator and that usually does the trick. The generator is built in so it's just a matter of pushing a button. I have so much charging capacity on board that if it ever got out of hand some how (maybe a failed regulator?), I have a diverter device that cuts off the offending high voltage at the set point and diverts it into a second element that's in the hot water tank. I used to have a resistor bank to dump the load into but a regulator did fail and the excess power that went into the resistor bank was so much that it started to burn it up. That's why I changed over to the hot water heater element. It's a pretty good system that's provided for our needs and has been pretty trouble free for years.