little white wire
 

So on my Renegade i have this wire that i dont know what it does, asked the last two owners and they dont have a clue. Any body here have any idea? i dont want to hook it up till i know.

Thanks Sam

Is that in the coach battery compartment?

If so it maybe a sensor wire for an inverter (if equipped) or a power supply for something else.

Yes these are the house batteries, my xantrex does not work so it could part of that.

Sam

The first thing I would do is trace the wire and see where it goes. Do you know if it is supposed to be on the positive or negative? Hooked up wrong it could get real expensive real quick........:(

It runs into a bundle that has the black loom around it. so i was hoping for help before i got into all that, not wanting any smoke to escape!


Sam

The weird thing is that based on the length of the wire and the size of the terminal it does not look like it is meant to hook directly to a battery. Is there something else in the compartment that is within reach of the wire and the right size post for the terminal? What about empty screw holes where something like a breaker or switch used to be installed but is gone now? As to tracing the wire, first I would just visually try to see where a wire the same size and color jumps out of the harness, or at your main panel, before you start untaping things and pulling wire loom apart. If you are not sure if you found the right wire you can disconnect the other end and check with an ohm meter.

Hotrod,
That connector will fit the battery screw down terminal......
Been thinking about a long wire hooked to it and me and meter on the other end looking for it.

Sam

N

Sure looks like a ground wire to me. I'd use a volt/ohm meter. Set it to volts first and see if it's hot (pretty sure it's not going to be hot but best to check first). Then I'd set it to ohms and see if there is continuity between that and ground. If no continuity I'd hook it up to the ground terminal on the battery. And hope your inverter starts working. I assume you checked for voltage at the dc input terminals on your inverter?

I'd be surprised to see a bare ring terminal that size on anything but a ground.

more white wire
 

You guys got me thinking more about my wire and I have some more pictures, It looks like an add on... because of the black tape and two white wire of different gauge? And after looking at the pictures I have two large red positive one going to the switch and another over the top, I'll see if that is not my emergency gen start. In the next few days I will do some metering and hunting to see what cooking.

Thanks
sam

I put the meter on the white wire today and yep it's a ground.... I would have put it on the positive THANKS for the heads up!

Now why is it not connected? What does it do? LOL

Sam

i wonder if it wasn't part of an isolation relay

I am going to use the emergency gen start and see if that ties the two sets together or just connected the truck batteries to the gen.

I will report later what I come up with.

sam

I've never seen a generator set up that charged the chassis/engine batteries.

That's a good question Don. My generator is started by the chassis batteries. Does a generator charge up it's own starter batteries when it's running? Like a car charges it's own battery when it's running? I've never checked the voltage directly on the chassis batteries with the generator running to see if it's charging them. I know on your rig the generator starts using the house batteries. And then the converter/charger starts charging the batteries. But I wonder if you unplugged the converter/charger and checked the house batteries would they not show they are being charged by the generator?

Let me try again,
When I have run down my house batteries and I try and start the Generator and it wont turn over fast enough then I can push the emergency generator start and as I hold it down, I can the start the generator. So I am guessing that I either tie the two sets of batteries together or I connect the generator to the truck batteries and it starts. I have to figure that out next. Maybe the white ground wire will come into play
Hope that helps more

Sam

This sounds logical.
Big question, is your coach starter 12v or 24v?

at least w/ our coach -

Our (3) engine/chassis batteries operate the engine/cockpit related items (including engine start), AND our levelers. If i switch off the engine/cockpit batteries, my levelers will not work, nor will i be able to start the engine.

Our House (3) batteries are for the house only, which include a 12vdc source for the Generator (starter), if i disconnect my house batteries, i can not start our generator (unless i override it w/ the "emergency get start" switch).

I'll have to confirm that our generator (even has an) alternator & if it charges the house batteries directly...im gonna bet it doesn't (since this would take another isolation relay or dc transfer switch).

rather the ac voltage supplied by the running generator, activates the Converter/Charger which charges the House batteries.

Our Generator does NOT charge the engine chassis batteries.

everything in our coach is 12vdc, engine & house, i don't know of any tractors that are 24vdc.

that EGS (emergency generator start) switch is the battery isolation relay OVER-RIDE. the EGS momentarily COMBINES the engine batteries w/ the house batteries.