Lazy Daze Owners' Group

Where’s is ground wire for battery in TK model?

March 08, 2018, 01:42:53 am

Ok,  another question.  Dennis at progressive dynamics is kindly supporting me to get the new progressive dynamics power center in tonreplace our old energenius one.

He said there shoukd be a ground for all parts of the power center:

1) dc fuses ground - we had that in old power center - this went into the battery negative of the power center.  This was a green wire.
All our dc fixtures/switches we have looked at so far have the white wire grounded directly to the chassis.  Only the hot wore (red but sometime black) is brought Back to the power center,

2). Ac circuits including controller/converter wires to a/c.
We had a ground for the entire old power center (connected to the outside of the power center box) so I put that in he ac ground bar.  This was a bare copper wire.
All our AC circuits bring  hot, neutral, and ground wires (inside shielding for each set) back to the panel.

3) We should have a ground wire from the battery negative post directly to the chassis.  In the old power center, the wire from the negative battery post went into the power center battery negative spot.  There was only that one cable on the battery negative post.  We have not seen an extra wire in the battery compartment but maybe there is one we didn’t notice behind the batteries. 

Reading old posts others talk about a wire from their battery to the chassis for ground.

Ok, where is that wire in an older TK (we have an 89).? 

Note when exploring under the coach the other day I saw under the power center area  3 wires bolted to the chassis - eg ground wires.
While they all looked white under the coach (or covered in light tan decades old road dirt build up.  They could be the other end of the ac copper ground wire and the dc fuse green wire (splices somewhere).
Picture of this attached.

I am going to see if I can see 3 ground wires coming up together into the cabinet the power center is in (probably tomorrow).

Jane

Re: Where’s is ground wire for battery in TK model?

Reply #2 – March 08, 2018, 12:21:51 pm

Rodney,

We have a 120v generator, I am guessing original. It has 120v wiring (hot, neutral, ground) and something that looks more like a ribbon cable (flat with i think 3 wires) that goes to the generator switch.

The lights and switches so far that I have seen the wiring for has an red/black and a white wire. Checking for voltage at the switch at the door made it obvious all the whites were grounded to the chassis in some manner.

I have been thinking about it and the three wires grounded to the chassis are smaller then battery cables yet larger than the other coach wiring (no markings but 120v wiring looks like 10 gauge and 12v wiring looks like 12 and sometimes 14 gauge). So I am guessing the 3 wires attaches to the metal chassis for grounding are 8 gauge (maybe 6).
So I am thinking I need to make a battery to chassis ground wire - easy enough (well compared to what I am doing already) as the battery outside bin extends into the power center cabinet and hole already between them to bring cable from battery negative terminal into the cabinet with the power center.
Then where the other ground wires go thru there floor of the cabinet make a hole for the battery cable (avoiding other obstacles like the bin below the battery cabinet which is visible at the bottom of the power center cabinet).

The possibilities of how the old power center grounded that battery;
1) internally it grounded the battery to one of the 8 gauge wires going to the chassis

2) The red and white wires that I traced back towards the cab before they get lost (close to a front wheel well), that we think connected to the cab battery. The white wire was soldered to the battery negative cable just before it attached to the Power center. It could be that white wire connects to chassis ground in the cab area. These wires are stranded and I am not as good at guessing their size but it was about 1/ "2 as big as a stranded 4 gauge so I am guessing 8 gauge. I don't know if that was original in the LD or added when the original owners put in a better power center right after buying the lazydaze. But it seems a larger wire size would be better.

Jane

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Re: Where’s is ground wire for battery in TK model?

Reply #4 – March 08, 2018, 02:32:56 pm

Ed so you have:

the engine grounded (pic with single flat wire?)

And one other spot that has 2 grounds - a smaller and bigger wire?  One dc fuses and one AC wires maybe?  or dc fuses and battery ground?  Or?

Where does your battery negative post cable go?  You may not be able to trace this unless it goes straight down or into a close by cabinet for the power center.

Hmm i think I should check if there is a groins by the geneator.  Our generator is underneath the coach, we can crawl under (ok scoot under is more accurate) to take off the cover panel but a wire should be coming out to ground.

Re: Where’s is ground wire for battery in TK model?

Reply #6 – March 08, 2018, 04:29:17 pm

Found my old post from the Yahoo forum days. #159698. Here it is.


“Just got off the phone with Vince. Here is what I am seeing near the steps on the TK. The location of these grounds will vary with the model.

The bare solid copper wire , #10, is the "main chassis ground".
The stranded wire  near the generator is the ground for the generator. “

Ed