Battery hookup

[kacee]

My husband and I are arguing about this, even though we have hooked the battery up many times. It has black and white leads and the camper (2006 Coleman Santa Fe) has black and RED connections, so I say hook the black to black and the white to the red connection. We did it MY WAY and nothing worked! Am I wrong or is the battery bad? We put it on the charger but now are wondering if the charger is on the fritz.

[wavery]

My husband and I are arguing about this, even though we have hooked the battery up many times. It has black and white leads and the camper (2006 Coleman Santa Fe) has black and RED connections, so I say hook the black to black and the white to the red connection. We did it MY WAY and nothing worked! Am I wrong or is the battery bad? We put it on the charger but now are wondering if the charger is on the fritz.

White is ground when you have white & black (black is positive). That is the way that most campers are wired.

If you have red & black, red is positive and black is ground. This would be very unusual on campers less than 20 years old (or so).

If someone has put a red wire on the battery (which is not code) it would be connected to the black (positive) wire on the camper. Sometimes people put the wrong color wires when they do repairs or alterations.

[kacee]

OK, I said it wrong. The BATTERY has black and red connections and the CAMPER has black and white, as you said it should. So we should connect the camper's BLACK lead to the battery's RED connection and the camper's WHITE lead to the battery's BLACK connection? I would think in this situation you would connect black to black (I had to help my son jumpstart his old car several times last winter and it was always black-black/red-red.)

I think also the charger we used must have a lose wire or something, as we actually tried the battery both ways after we thought it was charged and neither way worked.

Now you know if this proves my husband right so I will have to eat crow? Maybe I will just cook the crow next time we are camping and he will eat it without knowing!

Thanks for your advice!

[coach]

Yes, start searching for a recipe!

The problem is code, RVs generally follow building codes with white the ground (negative)!

Then the battery charger (12v world) has a red (+) and a black (-) clamp
Same as jumper cables!

Check the fuses in your converter, if you have a 'reverse polarity' (and you should) fuse and hooked it up incorrect, it will need replacing. That's why it didn't work hooked up correct, the fuse was blown by the incorrect hookup.

[kacee]

Well you guys should stop by our camp site for dinner ... I think after a few beers you wouldn't know what I was serving! But I had better stick to cooking because I obviously know nothing about electricity!

Thanks for the advice on the fuse, we'll check that, but my husband is also taking the battery into work to make sure it is really charged.

Have fun camping this summer!

[kacee]

p.s. My husband took the battery into work where they could test its power and recharge it. It was down to 10 percent, tried to charge it several times and it would not hold a charge. The engineer at work said it was kaput, maybe from not using it? True it was not used at all over the winter, but it is only a couple of years old. Am wondering if the dealership gave us an old battery when we bought it. Anyway, this particular battery would not have worked no matter how many wrong ways we hooked it up! Thanks for the advice guys!

[wavery]

p.s. My husband took the battery into work where they could test its power and recharge it. It was down to 10 percent, tried to charge it several times and it would not hold a charge. The engineer at work said it was kaput, maybe from not using it? True it was not used at all over the winter, but it is only a couple of years old. Am wondering if the dealership gave us an old battery when we bought it. Anyway, this particular battery would not have worked no matter how many wrong ways we hooked it up! Thanks for the advice guys!

Once the battery drops below a certain level of charge, it is impossible to get it to take a charge. I could give you a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo but it wouldn't change anything.

It's best to charge the battery to full capacity at least once a month. Some people leave the battery on a constant trickle charge to extend the battery life.

A battery will lose charge just sitting on the shelf. It doesn't even have to be hooked up. If you live in a humid climate (moisture will conduct electricity), it will go faster. If the top of the battery is dirty (dirt will conduct electricity) it will go faster still.

Also, be sure to check the water level in the battery on a regular basis. If/when it gets low on water, fill it with distilled water only.