Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all,
Bit of an odd question, but I need someone to ELIF

So, I've just got a leisure battery for my T25, I intend on running only internal LED lights, radio, and a cigarette lighter charger for mobile phone charging - nothing too taxing. For now, I am only planning to only charge the leisure battery using solar, I do have a split charge relay which I will fit, but not right now.
First things first, I know enough to NOT electricute myself, but something is just confusing me, my mind keeps flip flopping between what's best.

Is it OK to connect the negative terminal of the leisure battery to the chassis? For some reason this just doesn't sit right in my head, i.e. having both the starter battery and leisure battery negative terminals essentially connected together just seems wrong :-S I know it's common practice, but everywhere I've read involves the split charge relay so not sure if that makes a difference.
ELIF bit: for me a circuit is a loop, but having the negative terminal potentially "route" the returning feed to a different battery feels a little odd, does the supplying battery "suck" the returning circuit to the correct battery? Obviously power isn't returning to the battery as it's being used to power the light, but the circuit needs to be closed - the connection to a shared negative confuses this for me.

Apologies, I feel utterly stupid asking, I do understand a bit of electrics but this has stumped me - I don't want anything to hinder the performance of the starter battery you see. If both batteries share a negative, will this affect my starter battery?

I suppose the other question is, can I just hard wire the accessory negatives back to the negative on the leisure battery? Is this safe if the battery negative terminal isn't connected to the chassis? I have the negative wires fed back there anyway.

Thanks! ()

ELIF? Elucidate like I'm fick? You've got me on that!

Both batteries are earthed to chassis, it doesn't connect anything else other than the negative terminals. You can return to the battery negative if you wish but isn't normal in vehicles as you have metal everywhere around that is electrically part of the chassis. It is only on boats that the return goes to the battery as there is no chassis. ( Occasionally you have to run a return if you are fully lined inside a vehicle and cannot make a return to chassis nearby to the device that you are connecting up.)

all negs to chassis earth , APART from the solar panel neg. the solar panel neg must not connect to chassis before the controller, or the controller will not control correctly ..

Perfect people, thanks for your help!

I don't know why this confused me so much but I will negative to chassis!

(ELIF = Explain Like I'm Five by the way )