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Golfinscorp · 07-18-2013, 11:27 AM

Hi Guys
My coach is a 2001 Journey 36 DL
I disconnected my three 12V house batteries to clean and service and like an idiot did not make a sketch of how they were wired. Consequently I hooked them up wrong (yes I had the neg and pos hooked up on the correct side of the battery) according to the wiring diagrams I see on the winnebag web site. I see that for all 36' Journeys the wiring to/from the batteries is identical. My question is...should I connect the batteries as per the diagram or does anyone have any insight into a more up to date method?.
Thanks
John

Cobra1 · 07-18-2013, 01:17 PM

How much wiring is there? I mean 3 12 batteries should be connected in parallel - pos to pos to pos and also neg to neg to neg - and then select one of the batteries to connect to the coach wires - red to pos and black to neg. Is there more to it than that?

skigramp · 07-18-2013, 01:53 PM

John ...

You hook up the 3 batteries in parallel ... lets call them Batt A, Batt B, and Batt C

There is a connection across the positives of A, B and C ... likewise the negatives.

The "tricky" part is the charging (supply) cables and the discharging (load) cables.

the charging cables go to "opposite ends of the parallel chain" ... one cable attaches to Battery A and the other attaches to battery C

and the discharging cables are just the opposite ... one to battery C and the other to battery A ...

There are NO charging or discharging cables connected to battery B

I tried to find the article that describes the rationale for this but I could not find it ... and this is the way the cables are connected on my 2004 Journey

for36rd · 07-18-2013, 07:14 PM

I have been working on the wiring of the batteries of a 36rd Itasca and have found that it is not a straight forward wiring. From front to back you have battery 1, 2, and 3. On battery 1 the positive terminal you have a long red cable that goes to the catastrophe fuse. On my coach it is just to the right of the positive post. ( the parallel cables from positive to positive and negative to negative cables are there but I will not mention them). The positive cable on battery 3 goes to the coach mode solenoid. The negative terminal on battery 1 goes to the back of the compartment and goes to a grounding bus. The negative terminal on battery 3 goes to the right side of the compartment and goes to the inverter. There is also a small wire that is the temp senser on this post. So looking at it battery 1 negative and battery 3 positive are the power source for the coach. While positive battery 1 and negative post battery 3 go to the inverter/charger. The important point is that you have these cables going from positive to negative on battery 1 and 3. I hope this helps.

Golfinscorp · 07-19-2013, 10:02 AM

Thanks for the replies guys.
Cobra1 I think Skigramp and For36D have pretty much confirmed the wiring diagram I found on the Winnebago website.
Yes I did have all of the small pos to pos links hooked together and neg to neg links in parallel. I understand about the need to connect the inverter cables at batteries 1 $ 3 (A & C)
The remaining pair of pos/neg cables, according to the wiring diagram I downloaded are also shown connected at batteries 1 & 3 (A & C) with the pos cable going to the generator and the neg cable to grounding block.
It's tough trying to determine which of the long pos and neg cables go to the inverter as they either disappear through either a wall straight ahead or join several other cables and shoot off to the right toward the front of the coach.
Since the generator is at the front of the coach I connected that pos cable to battery 1(A) and the neg cable to battery 3(C). I hope I got it right.

I do have a feeling that when the new house batteries were installed 2 years ago that the RV shop hooked them up differently.
Thanks again for the help
John