Video Transcript for “Setting Up Dual 12
Volt Camper Batteries | RV Quick Tips” Randy: Hey guys. Randy from Pete's RV here today, another quick
tip segment for you. This segment is going to be for our dry campers
out there or the people looking to get a little bit more longevity out of their battery. So hooking up a couple batteries on to your
12 volt supply camper. What we're going to do here today is we're
going to hook up 2 batteries in parallel. So we'll have 2 12 volt batteries to provide
power to our camper so we can use it off the grid for a little while longer. First thing you want to do when you're hooking
something up in parallel is figure out which is positive and which is negative on your
battery. This is very important for us. And the next thing you want to do is you want
to make yourself some jumper wires or you could purchase these at an automotive store,
or we can make them for you here at Pete's RV as well. So when we're hooking something up in parallel,
we're pretty much going positive to positive and negative to negative. Back to the jumper wires that I just talked
about, is we want to make sure the jumper wires that we use are going to be equal or
a greater gauge than the wires that are on the camper. If we use wires that are too small, now our
wires become the fuse, rather than the fuse that we'll have inside the camper to protect
this coach. A smaller wire could actually heat up and
melt, where a larger wire will not. So we want to make sure that those wires are
the appropriate gauge. So we're going to go ahead and put these batteries
up here on the camper, show you how to hook them up in parallel, give you a little bit
more longevity out of those batteries when you're dry camping. All right, so here we are on the front of
our Bullet Premier that we have here in the Burlington, Vermont location showroom. I'm doing this video today without battery
boxes, which we would usually install on here to protect the batteries but a little bit
easier to see it while shooting the video so we're going to leave those out today. So what I've done is I've situated my batteries
on the A-frame here. This, [subs 00:01:50], unit is set up to take
2 batteries. And I've got my ground wire and my positive
wire that normally feed the camper on a one battery set up. Now you can always tell your ground wire because
it's going to be hooked [00:02:00] to the A-frame or to the chassis of the coach, and
that's how we achieve ground throughout the coach. So I know this wire's my ground wire because
it's hooked right here to the A-frame. This black wire here is going to be my positive
wire, because it goes to back to one of the [reself 00:02:12] resetting breakers on the
front of this camper. So I've hooked my battery to the positive,
and I'm going to take this ground wire and I'm actually going to hook it to the negative
on the opposite battery. That way we're pulling both of these batteries
down together. If we hook them both to one, chances are the
second battery is going to be pulled down at the same rate as the first battery. Another important thing when you're doing
a set up like this is to use batteries purchased at the same time. If you use one older battery and one newer
battery, you're only as good as your lower battery, and that's going to shorten your
battery life. So make sure the [ba 00:02:43], batteries
are equal and purchased at the same time and they start out fresh. So I've got the negative, the positive hooked
to the positive over here on the battery, which is going to be kind of hard to see there,
but I can see it here. I've got the negative hooked up here. So now what we, we're going to want to do
is hook up another positive wire from the positive of this battery to the positive of
this battery. We're going to go ahead and put our nuts on
now. Lock that down there. I'll put this guy on here. Good idea is snug these up pretty good, and
make sure that the terminals are very clean and the battery connections are very clean
on your wires as well. That way you're going to get the best voltage
you can have supplied to you. I'm going to set this one over here to the
negative. Turn it around, a little bit easier to hook
it up for us. Put that nut on there. Tighten that down. I'll go back and snug things up later with
one of my wrenches. I'm going to hook this negative here. So now we have just successfully hooked these
2 batteries up in parallel, so it's going to give us 12 volt supply to the coach and
going to give us a lot more longevity when we are using this camper [00:04:00] in a dry
camping situation. Now these batteries will be charged while
we're driving down the road. If you've got an appropriate charge line in
the [truck 00:04:05], that's the best way to charge these batteries. But there's a simple parallel hook up, positive
to positive, negative to negative. Make sure you put your positive from the trailer
on one battery, your negative from the trailer on the other battery. That way they will [decel 00:04:17] at the
same time, and make sure your batteries are purchased at the same time. We've always got discounted pricing here on
batteries at Pete's RV Center so we can take care of you in that regard as well. So there it is in a nutshell. Parallel wiring two 12 volt batteries. This'll get you where you need to go on your
dry camping. Thanks again for watching Pete's RV with Randy
today, and come see us on our Facebook page. Check us out on YouTube as always. And once again, thanks for thinking of Pete's
RV and happy camping. The video of this presentation by Pete’s
RV Center is available at: http://youtu.be/9g1xLnFsob0
