12v Leisure - Negative Question

[stupot73]

Hi,

A quick question about 12v if I may please folks. I am rewiring the leisure electrics and was wondering about if I should bother running negative cables for various items all the way back to the leisure battery, or can I just connect them anywhere on to the can structure? For example, an LED light strip in the back could be cabled with negative all the way to the front of the van to the leisure battery, or I could just fit an earth strip at the back and do it that way.

Our 12v leisure is NOT charged from the alternator and so it is completely separate to the vehicle electrics - apart from the fact it is earthed to the van.

It seems to me I can do so but wondered if I am missing something?

Cheers me dears.

[bigbadbob76]

In theory YES, no problem doing that.
In practice you might find you need to add extra earth straps between van shell and chassis and make sure your leisure battery earth strap is good and well connected to clean steel.
Bad/corroded earths can lead to no end of problems.

[stupot73]

Many thanks, good to have confirmation.

[bigbadbob76]

Also avoid earthing things twice, ie: don't connect both ends of a negative wire to earth.
It can play havoc with your audio system.

[Bubble Meister]

All my leisure system is earthed through the chassis. The only exception is the fridge; for that I used twin core cable and it earths direct to the leisure -ve terminal. Ive never had any issues.

[jamesc76]

Also avoid earthing things twice, ie: don't connect both ends of a negative wire to earth.
It can play havoc with your audio system.

what/??????? lol

[ajsimmo]

Sent from my SM-T210 using Tapatalk

[bigbadbob76]

Earthing things twice can cause earth loops where induced current circulates in the loop.
mainly a problem in mains powered equipment but also if you have pwm switching in solar charge regulators etc and ignition pulses in a petrol vehicle can cause it too.
This can induce noise into your audio system and drive you mad trying to find the problem.

Thinking about it, it's just occurred to me that welding near an earth loop could fry your wiring too.
There's more to earthing than just getting a negative return for your equipment.