Need help hooking up new 6V batteries!

[spur1982]

I have a 2013 Stellar Eclipse. It came with the double 6V battery set up. I should have taken pictures of how they were hooked up before I removed the old batteries to replace with the new ones, but I didn't. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm a little confused on which cables go where. I know to connect the positive of one battery to the negative post of the other, and then the other positive and negative would be going to the trailer. But there are 4 cables coming from the trailer, a set of Pos/Neg on one side and another set of Pos/Neg on the other side (one set goes to the generator I'm assuming?). So how are they all connected? It looks like one side would be hooked up to the battery on that side, and same with the other side, BUT that would mean the posts used to connect them would be sharing with other cables and I read in a different forum saying that is not good and the connecting posts shouldn't have anything on them except for the connecting cable. So if that's true, would the 2 reds go on one batteries positive and the black and white go on the others negative? I hope I explained that well enough. I attached a picture. Thank you in advance! [img][/img]

[Dirtclods]

spur1982 wrote:
I have a 2013 Stellar Eclipse. It came with the double 6V battery set up. I should have taken pictures of how they were hooked up before I removed the old batteries to replace with the new ones, but I didn't. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm a little confused on which cables go where. I know to connect the positive of one battery to the negative post of the other, and then the other positive and negative would be going to the trailer. But there are 4 cables coming from the trailer, a set of Pos/Neg on one side and another set of Pos/Neg on the other side (one set goes to the generator I'm assuming?). So how are they all connected? It looks like one side would be hooked up to the battery on that side, and same with the other side, BUT that would mean the posts used to connect them would be sharing with other cables and I read in a different forum saying that is not good and the connecting posts shouldn't have anything on them except for the connecting cable. So if that's true, would the 2 reds go on one batteries positive and the black and white go on the others negative? I hope I explained that well enough. I attached a picture. Thank you in advance! [img][/img]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhAX02V20Gk

[spur1982]

Thanks for everyone’s help, I was able to figure it out and I’m good to go now!

[tchil]

The best thing you can do without damaging anything is to ohm out the cables. Most volt meters have a mode that will beep when you touch the two cables from the meter together. Use this to touch each cable one at a time and then touch the other side of the volt meter to ground. You can also follow the cables and see which one goes to ground. Next find the cable that goes to the positive side of the trailer. You can follow that to a battery cutoff or all the way to the power converter if necessary. Before you hook the batteries up check to make sure the wire you think is positive does not beep when touching the meter to ground that wire. That will keep you from hooking it up backwards and damaging something. Hope this helps some.

[N-Trouble]

2oldman wrote:
A 2013 rig is not wired for a 6v batterie. It's wired for 2 -6v batterie.

Correct, Trailers are always wired for 12V input. You gotta turn your two 6v into one 12v by attaching the positive of one to the neg of the other. A separate cable is needed for this.

[N-Trouble]

Hook the two 6Vbatteries in series and now you have one big 12v. Its really not that difficult...

[2oldman]

A 2013 rig is not wired for a 6v batterie. It's wired for 2 -6v batterie.

[dedmiston]

Not that this will help you now, but here's a tip for keeping things straight next time you do this. Besides snapping a photo from your phone, grab a couple of zip ties and tie together everything that connects to positive and then do the same with the negative (if you have more than one item attached). This makes it much easier and also helps prevent you from misplacing one of the lines.

[HadEnough]

UNLESS... Your rig is weird and is pre wired for 6v batterie.

[HadEnough]

I'll make a guess (could damage something so don't listen to me)

Look at the lugs. The main connection is the red/black on the far end of the pic. The batteries should be tied together with a battery cable so there is a positive and a negative terminal left (showing 12v between the positive and negative.)

The leads with the heavy terminals should go on the positive and negative respectively. Red positive, black negative.

The other more lightweight wires in the foreground look like an inverter or secondary 12v circuit. My GUESS on that part is the white is negative and should see 12v negative while the red is positive and should see 12v positive.

[nayther]

if the wires go to the frame they're grounds or negative. If they don't then they're positive. You'll need one wire between + and - to put them in series. The 12 volt site quoted will show it all, great reference.

[2oldman]

TRIPLE8 wrote:
Hi, google the 12 volt side of life and you will get all that info and then some.

Yeah I kinda doubt that site will figure out which wires go where.

The best I can tell him is to turn everything off. Then hook up a + and - wire, then see if a 12v fan runs properly.

[TRIPLE8]

Hi, google the 12 volt side of life and you will get all that info and then some.

[2oldman]