Battery problems

[RWilson928]

One of my batteries started to smell and smoke. Disconnected and removed from batt box. Took it to Interstate and they said it was “toasted”. Checked other battery and they said one cell was dead and rest of cells were “all over the place”, bought second battery. Need to check and see if system is over charging batteries. Live in Arizona and am in Alaska on vacation. Interstate says when hooking up batteries hook up main positive lines to one battery and tie them together. Then hook up main ground wire to other battery and then tie two batteries together. That was not the way they were hooked up from dealer. Does this sound reasonable to the forum? Can’t get an appointment to check charging system here until after we have to leave for home. Any suggestions or feedback?
Thanks

[GrumpyDad]

More details would be very helpful. I'm guessing from your post that you bought 2x 6V batteries and need to wire them up in series to get 12V? Were your previous batteries also 6V?

Do you have a portable voltage meter? They are dirt cheap, and probably available even in smaller centres in alaska. You can pretty quickly see if your converter in the trailer is overcharging your batteries.

[Mustang65]

Here are a few diagrams on how the batteries can be hooked up. One for 12Volt batteries one is (2) 6 volt batteries. Ignore the cut off switch in the picture.

Don

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