There are two reasons for hooking up two batteries in your van. Provided you chalk up distinct electronic devices in the van, you may occasion to associate the batteries separately so the moment battery can potency the devices without draining the elementary one's potentiality. Or you can link two batteries to produce added faculty these days (affection connecting two 6-volt batteries to receive 12 volts). The wiring mode is contradistinct for Everyone of these.
Instructions
Connecting Separate Batteries
1. Connect a battery isolator to your generator (in a automobile, this is the alternator). The isolator is a switch that can interchange the potential between the two batteries.
2. Connect a terminal on the isolator to the affirmative terminal on one battery. Connect the moment battery's positive terminal to another terminal on the isolator. Whether you need to use your own wire for this, use a new No. 8 GA wire.
3. Wire one battery's positive terminal to the starter and ignition switch, making this the "starter battery." Connect the second battery's positive terminal to the accessories you will use the extra battery for.
4. Link the two batteries by connecting the first battery's negative terminal to the second battery's positive terminal.
Linking Two Batteries
5. Connect the red battery cable, which is connected to the alternator and ignition switch, to the positive terminal on one battery.
6. Attach the black battery cable, which is the grounding cable, to the negative terminal on the second battery.
7. Secure the negative terminals of both batteries to a ground. The battery cable in the car supplies the ground for the starter battery. You must locate a good metal ground to associate a cable for the other battery. Placing the cable leads under a screw somewhere on the chassis will work.
