Mike,

For charging the battery via the glow panel, they usually have a set of plugs that fit the connectors where the start goes and you hook the charge to them. That set of connections is direct to the battery. My panel also does glow driver and fuel pump. I used to use the glow driver and found that I did have to keep the field box fairly close to the plane, hence close to the prop plus was always concerned that the wire to the panel glow driver was going to get sucked into the prop.

I still use the starter and fuel pump by very rarely do I use the glow driver. I have remote glow drivers for that. I use the one on the power panel if the remote one goes dead. The Hobbico panels, which is what I use also come with a glow plug built into the panel that is used to charge remote glow plug drivers which I use often for myself and other club members.