battery cable

[Mel Griffin]

Upon reconnecting my battery cables to the coach batteries, I find a BLACK cable with this number 2504934 on it, according to my drawing I made when I took the cables off this BLACK cable goes to a RED post.  Can this be true?  Is there a place I can find this cable number to see if it really goes on a RED terminal?

Thanks for your help.
Mel

[Richard And Babs Ames]

If each coach battery has 6 cells (2 volts per cell) they are 12 volt and should be hooked up positive to positive (red to red) and negative to negative (black to black) to as your chassis is a 12 volt system like the house.

If you wire positive to negative you will be putting 24 into a 12 volt system.

[LarryNCarolynShirk]

Mel,
The two Negative posts should be connected together with a black cable and then another black cable is tied to a ground bolt on the chassis.
The two positive terminals should be connected together with a red cable and then another red cable is tied to the coach power.
Just be sure the positive cables are not connected to the ground bolt on the chassis. Where the cables go is more important than the color.  If you see a large spark, you did it wrong.
Larry

[Gerald Farris]

Mel,
You did not say if the cable was going from battery to battery, or if it was going from the battery to the coach. If it is battery to battery, I can give you a very simple diagram to connect them up. If it is battery to coach, it takes a little more work to be certain you wire it correctly.

Gerald

[Joel Ashley]

Mel-

You said you were reconnecting your "coach" batteries, and if you mean the four 6-volt batteries (aka "house" batteries), then they are wired as 2 pairs, each pair hooked together in series, and the 2 pair wire to each other parallel;  your two 12-volt chassis batteries on the other hand are just hooked together in parallel.  A pair of 6v batteries wired in series provides 12 volts together.  A pair (or any number) of 12v batteries wired in parallel provides 12 volts together.  That can be confusing, so you should avail yourself of Gerald's diagram offer to make sure things are put back together right.

One thing I did on our old 1984 gas coach when replacing batteries, to identify multiple black cables that ran from up front up to 20 feet back to the converter and generator, was to make several wraps of red electrical tape around the insulation at the ends of the positive ones, and the same with green tape (or leave tapeless if you like) around the ground cables.  An ultra-fine point Sharpie permanent marker served to write on each tape which battery it went to - just ID each battery with a number, perhaps use a white marker to write a number on each battery (white nail polish works and lasts a long time).  A simple "2 +" on the taped end of a cable would tell you that end went on the positive post of battery #2.  A "3 - " would be the cable end that went to the negative post of battery 3.  The "permanent" marker fades after a few years, so be sure to refresh the markings occasionally.

Our Beaver coach is configured such that I haven't found it necessary to ID the cables yet, but if I ever do I might try foregoing the tape altogether and just mark the bats and black cables with white nail polish.  You just have to make sure the surface you want to mark is clean.

[Mel Griffin]

On 2-24-10 I was told by the Beaver people that cable # 2504934 was negative ground fo the inverter.  I lightly touched the black cable to negative post and got a big spark, then I touched the black cable to a positive post and no spark.  Upon finding info on Freedom Inverter at Coach Assist-Beaver Service Info by Steve Rankin, info says some inverters were shipped with both cables black, my red shrink wrap was missing.  Any way my original drawing showing black to positive post was right.  
See attached by Steve Rankin.

Mel

[Glenda Farris Co-Admin]

re-sized photo