T-1850 Battery wires

[VTviking]

Getting closer to getting our 1994 T-1850 on the road! Trying to hook up a deep-cycle battery and don't know which wires coming from the camper are positive and negative. There's a red wire with 2 30-amp fused connections along it. The white wire is un-"interrupted". There's a thin two-colored wire in the configuration as well. No clue what that is. Thanks for any insight! (Am trying to send pic but not sure if this is working..)

[Tinstaafl]

No pics showed up in your post.

Just to keep you from feeling lonely, I'll chip in with some rudimentary stuff until someone more knowledgeable about that vintage stops by.

Sunline typically used white wire for the chassis ground, which connects to the negative battery terminal. Wiring to the positive terminal would be fused--that's your red wire. If you have any sort of meter to test continuity, use that to see if the white wire is tied to the camper's metal chassis.

With a camper that old, it's seldom safe to assume that a previous owner didn't change any of the wiring, so it's always best to either meter or visually trace the wires to make sure of where they go.

If your camper has electric brakes, that thinner wire may be for the emergency breakaway switch that activates them if your hitch breaks loose. If that's the case, that would also go to the positive terminal of the battery.

[VTviking]

Sounds like good advice! Yes- it does look like the thin wire connects to the emergency break away switch to the electric brakes. We'll try to track down a meter and also someone to confirm what's what. Problem is- those people are not available- too busy camping! Thanks so much!

[JohnB]

Hi, this will help on posting pics, they really help a lot in these cases.

Here are the basics on 3 ways to add pics.

1. Upload pics to a specific post attaching them at the end of the post.

2. Linking them in from a public viewable web photo hosting service you have.

See here for 1 and 2 https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...html#post86041

3. You can upload pics to the forum in your own personal photo album. Then link them to anywhere in the text of a post. See here on how to create an album. https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...html#post87945

If you still get stuck, let us know. Pic's go a long way in helping show things you are working on, and we really like seeing Sunline pics!

Hope this helps

John

[JohnB]

To help on the wiring, what Tin stated is very good.

Seeing your pics will help confirm some things also as was said, we have no idea, nor you in this case, if a prior owner changed something. They may not have picked industry standard, or Sunline standard camper wire colors.

This can help without a meter. The large battery white wire, this one needs to be traced under the camper and see where it goes. Same for the red wire, but lets talk the white one for a starter. The camper is or was setup to have the negative battery wire go to the camper metal frame and the LP gas pipe as a few of the places it attaches to. Look for the same long white wire up by the battery goes under the camper and joins to the metal frame and the LP gas pipe. It may and should also go up inside the camper to the power converter, but the negative wire will only be hooked to the frame and gas pipe. If that is the white wire, then you know that color is battery negative.

The red wire, that heavier wire wire would go from the battery up into the camper through the floor . It would "not" attach to the camper steel frame or gas pipe. There is a need to feed the emergency break away switch and maybe a power tongue jack if there is one, those may be red but would be thinner/smaller in most cases. If the red wires goes to these places and the white wire like above, this helps add to that the red wire is the battery positive wire.

Post pics of where the wires go to and we can help better short of your folks with the meter who are out camping.

Hope this helps

John