Is it OK/Good to do a positive and a negative run from front battery to back?

[Mike Waters 10+ year member]

Is it OK/Good to do a positive and a negative run from front battery to the ones in the back? In my case I was gonna do 2 runs of positive from the front battery to the batteries in the back and wasn't sure if it was a good idea to do a double run of negative wire from the front to the back as well. As always thanks for any help.

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[Slo_Ride 5,000+ posts]

yes

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

yep, and usually superior to relying on the frame/body for ground.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I match runs, 2 runs of 0 gauge power for me, 2 runs of 0 gauge negative for me.

 

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

Yes, but you will still want to ground to the frame/chassis. As I believe @bbeljefe ; said, $10.01 isn't much more than $10.00, but it's still more.

 

[Mike Waters 10+ year member]

Could someone please explain why it is good/necessary to my know it all buddy to run double grounds from front batteries to back batteries as he keeps arguing with me telling me it is a waste of wire and will do absolutely nothing for me, Thanks.

 

[bbeljefe]

Could someone please explain why it is good/necessary to my know it all buddy to run double grounds from front batteries to back batteries as he keeps arguing with me telling me it is a waste of wire and will do absolutely nothing for me, Thanks.

It isn't necessary to run double grounds unless you're running double positive runs as well. If you only have one positive run you can use only one negative run and if you have 3 positive runs you should have 3 negative.

But you should run those grounds not just to the rear battery bank. They should be run through the rear battery bank and the last (and only the last) battery should be grounded to the frame/body of the vehicle.

The reason is simple. Current follows the path of least resistance and in order that your rear batteries receive as much charge current as they need, they must have a ground path that is lower in resistance (or as close to it as possible) than that of the front batteries. And it's also for that reason that when you run rear battery banks, you only need one ground to the first battery in the circuit (the one under the hood).

 

[Mike Waters 10+ year member]

Thank you that explained it perfectly.