dual battery charging

[sandslot]

I recently purchased a used Gulf Stream C-Class Conquest.

I have two 12-V batteries in the front, one is a starter flooded battery and the second is the home deep-cycle battery. There is a "gate switch" located on the negative terminal of the home battery and when it's up, seems things don't work well....when it's down (connecting a higher negative post with the standard negative battery post), things work ok, but I think I would not want to leave this on for a while. The three questions I'm hoping to get help on is:

1) does the alternator charge the home battery (with the gate switch in the down position)?
2) is the negative terminal the correct location for the gate switch? The cable is hooked to the chassis & is grounded. Should it go to the positive terminal?
3)is there a wiring diagram available for this?

Thank you

[LVJ58]

The gate switch you describe is a battery "Disconnect" switch which is commonly left open when the coach is in storage to eliminate any parasitic drain on coach/home batteries. To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't matter whether the switch is on the negative or positive terminal

When the Gate/disconnect switch is closed/engaged, your engine alternator and/or converter should charge the coach/home batteries.

To test whether the engine alternator is charging the coach/home batteries, use a voltmeter and with switch closed/engaged start your engine and take a voltage reading at the battery terminals. If the alternator is charging the batteries, you should get a reading of 13.8+ volts.

To check if your converter is charging the batteries, with engine off, plug the power cord to your coach into an 110vac outlet and with the gate switch still closed/engaged check the voltage again, with the voltmeter. If you get a reading of reads 13+ volts then your converter is also charging your coach/home batteries.

Good luck and let us know the results

[OneRVer]

Your "Disconnect Switch" should be on the positive side. Reason is some electronic's are grounded to the chassis giving them their own path to ground. So by installing the disconnect switch to the negitive terminal will not disconnect all of your electronic's. If you have the switch off of the positive terminal you will be isolating the 12 volts from all of your electronic's.