# Battery Hookup



## iowaboy (Oct 15, 2004)

I know the white ground goes to the neg post on Batt. NO. 1 and the wire from the TT goes to the pos post on Batt No 2. Then do I hook up the two neg posts together and the two pos post together. This would put the two 12V batteries in parrallel and the power is still 12v. (not in series). Is this correct? It seems I'm short one cable, if this is correct. Thanks for the help.


----------



## hautevue (Mar 8, 2009)

iowaboy said:


> I know the white ground goes to the neg post on Batt. NO. 1 and the wire from the TT goes to the pos post on Batt No 2. Then do I hook up the two neg posts together and the two pos post together. This would put the two 12V batteries in parrallel and the power is still 12v. (not in series). Is this correct? It seems I'm short one cable, if this is correct. Thanks for the help.


Yep, you got it! Wire it the easiest way keeping wire lengths short and use thick automotive battery wire. Ground wire to frame goes to negative on one battery. Positive (black) from TT goes to POS on one battery.

Connect the POS on one battery to the POS on the other. Connect the NEG on one battery to the NEG on the other.
Note that two of the batterry terminals will have two big wires attached: the POS to the TT will also have the jumper to the POS on the second battery. The NEG on one battery will have a jumper to the other NEG terminal, which will be the one that has the frame ground--that wire will run from the NEG terminal to the frame where it's screwed or bolted onto the frame.

Hope this helps!


----------



## Scoutr2 (Aug 21, 2006)

Yup! You have it. But if you hook up NEG to POS between the two batteries (and only one wire from one battery to ground and another single wire connected to the trailer), you'll put them in series and get 24V. That would not be good!

Think of it this way - a flashlight that uses two D-cell batteries has them positioned end to end - POS to NEG. That means that the two 1.5V D-cell batteries, connected together in series, provide 3V for lighting the bulb.

(And there should be a sticker on the trailer tongue that tells you how to hook up the batteries - NEG and POS - white and black. But the key is hook both NEG terminals together and the two POS terminals together.)

Mike


----------



## RGH Arizona (Aug 15, 2009)

hautevue said:


> I know the white ground goes to the neg post on Batt. NO. 1 and the wire from the TT goes to the pos post on Batt No 2. Then do I hook up the two neg posts together and the two pos post together. This would put the two 12V batteries in parrallel and the power is still 12v. (not in series). Is this correct? It seems I'm short one cable, if this is correct. Thanks for the help.


Yep, you got it! Wire it the easiest way keeping wire lengths short and use thick automotive battery wire. Ground wire to frame goes to negative on one battery. Positive (black) from TT goes to POS on one battery.

Connect the POS on one battery to the POS on the other. Connect the NEG on one battery to the NEG on the other.
Note that two of the batterry terminals will have two big wires attached: the POS to the TT will also have the jumper to the POS on the second battery. The NEG on one battery will have a jumper to the other NEG terminal, which will be the one that has the frame ground--that wire will run from the NEG terminal to the frame where it's screwed or bolted onto the frame.

Hope this helps!
[/quote]
I see this has been a couple of months--but it helped me today.


----------

