Hi everyone! My 2001 Chinook Concourse is having some electrical problems that I planned to have fixed. But for now, can someone tell me the proper way to hook up my dual coach batteries?
I’ve read and looked at several examples, but I’m electrically illiterate and am terribly confused. My rig has one black (negative) cable and 3 red (positive) cables. I also have one red jump cable and one black jump cable.
Please if you can help, explain it to me like I’m 5 years old.
Looking at the pictures you sent, it appears that you have two 12 volt batteries, and not two 6 volt batteries. You should verify that is the case, and then proceed as follows to hook up the two batteries in parallel:
Hook all 3 of the positive cables, along with one end of the positive jumper cable to the positive threaded terminal of one of the batteries. It doesn't matter which battery. Then hook the other end of the positive jumper cable to the positive threaded terminal of the other battery.
Once you have done that, hook up the negative cable to the negative threaded terminal of the battery that you did not hook the positive cables to, along with one end of the negative jumper cable. Then hook up the other end of the negative jumper cable to the negative threaded terminal of the other battery (the one that has the 3 positive cables on it). This will give you the proper parallel connection for your two 12 volt batteries to work properly together.
Getting 4 cables (the 3 positive and one jumper) onto the single positive threaded post my be a bit of a challenge...spread them out as best you can, and use a regular nut with a lock washer instead of the wing nut shown in your picture. Iy you can't accomplish this, you may need to install a busbar (something that is used to combine incoming cables and then have a single cable running from the bus bar to the battery terminal itself. The bus bar would have to be mounted somewhere on a wall of the battery compartment. You can find bus bars by looking on the web for them. Blue Sea and Victron are good companies to start with.
If you have other questions, let us know. This Forum is a great resource.
Good Luck.
David
