Tweet
Hello all,
I need advice on shunt wiring. First a little background...
I recently bought a 42ft motorhome with (known) bad batteries and am replacing (the 6) with Lifeline AGMs for 750Ah total installed house capacity. It has a Magnum 2812 inverter and Magnum's basic remote which is not very adjustable and cannot monitor state of charge. I bought the ME-ARC50 remote to replace the existing and Magnums battery monitor with 500A shunt. I decided on the Magnum battery monitor because of it networks with the remote and inverter and the remote allows the charging to be fully configured for the Lifelines.
My motorhome has two battery ground returns to the battery bank. There are also two + feeds. One set of +/- go to 12v house loads. The second set of +/- go directly to the inverter. The inverter + has a 400A fuse installed at the battery. I don't recall seeing a second fuse on the other + cable, but can't imagine there not being one.
House loads return to a chassis bonding stud, and from there a single 4/0 cable returns to the battery negative post. This ground wire runs past the inverter. The inverter wires are also 4/0. Therefore, currently there are two 4/0 negative cables returning to the battery bank.
Now for the question. Can I cut the chassis negative return cable and connect it to the inverter side of the shunt (so both the inverter negative and the house loads negative are connected at this point) and remove the remaining length to the battery, leaving only a single 4/0 negative return? Or, do I need to connect and run a second cable from the battery side of the shunt back to the battery negative? The length of run is 6 ft from shunt to battery.
Thanks,
Barry
I need advice on shunt wiring. First a little background...
I recently bought a 42ft motorhome with (known) bad batteries and am replacing (the 6) with Lifeline AGMs for 750Ah total installed house capacity. It has a Magnum 2812 inverter and Magnum's basic remote which is not very adjustable and cannot monitor state of charge. I bought the ME-ARC50 remote to replace the existing and Magnums battery monitor with 500A shunt. I decided on the Magnum battery monitor because of it networks with the remote and inverter and the remote allows the charging to be fully configured for the Lifelines.
My motorhome has two battery ground returns to the battery bank. There are also two + feeds. One set of +/- go to 12v house loads. The second set of +/- go directly to the inverter. The inverter + has a 400A fuse installed at the battery. I don't recall seeing a second fuse on the other + cable, but can't imagine there not being one.
House loads return to a chassis bonding stud, and from there a single 4/0 cable returns to the battery negative post. This ground wire runs past the inverter. The inverter wires are also 4/0. Therefore, currently there are two 4/0 negative cables returning to the battery bank.
Now for the question. Can I cut the chassis negative return cable and connect it to the inverter side of the shunt (so both the inverter negative and the house loads negative are connected at this point) and remove the remaining length to the battery, leaving only a single 4/0 negative return? Or, do I need to connect and run a second cable from the battery side of the shunt back to the battery negative? The length of run is 6 ft from shunt to battery.
Thanks,
Barry