Dual 6V battery charging

Originally posted by thegrandpoohbah I have a 12V battery charger/conditioner. The 171 I am about to get is going to have a dual 6V battery system. Can I safely use the charger to charge both batteries together in series? Will I need any additional accessories to do this or will the existing battery cables suffice?

Is the dual 6 volt battery system a factory installed model? I wasn't aware that Forest River did this. Some battery systems have a 6 volt and 12 volt mode.

You'd better ask your dealer how to connect it. When people are using 6 volt (golf cart) batteries, they nearly always link them in series to effectively create one big 12 volt battery. You then just connect the positive charging cable to the positive terminal of one battery and the negative charging cable to the negative terminal of the other battery. I strongly urge you to review a wiring diagram if you don't understand this perfectly.

But if it's a true 6 volt charging system, then you will probably have separate charging cables for both batteries. It makes absolutely no sense to me why anyone would want that, however, since virtually all RV equipment runs off of 12 volt DC current (except for the AC and microwave, often the TV).

Originally posted by thegrandpoohbah It is two 6V batteries wired in series to produce 12V. The dealer is installing it for me on a used 171 I am picking up Saturday. We typically boondock so I figured more Amp-hours is a good thing.

Just treat the two golfers as one 12V battery, just bigger. On board charger will work just fine. The only differences are they will take longer to charge and they will last longer on discharge.