On a 2023TAB 400, what is the small red wire coming off the Positive battery terminal?

DaveC

I think the white wire from the negative battery terminal is the Alde ground (can anyone confirm this) and the separate red wire connection is the heater. Want to know what the small red wire from the positive terminal is. It has a piece of black tape around it. Thanks

pthomas745

Battery heater.  There appears to be a little "jumper wire" from the battery post to that little red terminal? And, I found the instruction manual, and....it is very interesting!

https://battlebornbatteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BBHeat-Instruction-Guide-Edition.HIM_HeatedRev007_06302022-1.pdf

In this manual for the heaters:

They consume 1.8 amps when running.  Which....is a lot.  I don't know if his multiplies for each battery being heated.  Would a 4 battery setup use almost 8 amps when heating the batteries?

And: if you have a shunt, and since those 1.8 amps is "internal" to the battery, the shunt will not record this power use.

From the Manual above, Page 7:

The internal heating function of your battery consumes about 1.8 amps of power. At 0° F
(-17.7° C) and no insulation, the heater function will be continuously on. With no
external loads and no external charging, this will give your roughly 48 hours of heating
capability before your battery will go into low voltage disconnect. With warmer
temperatures and, or insulation, you will consume less power allowing you to extend the
usage time.
Please note: this information is based on the BB10012H model and may vary between
models.
Heated Batteries and Your External Monitoring Devices
All of the power used for the internal heating function is within the battery. This means if
you have an external monitoring device, such as a BMV, that power will not be recorded if
or when the heating function turns on. The monitoring device will need to be recalibrated

MuttonChops

My 2-cents - - -
 @DaveC 's installation does not have a Shunt for monitoring battery.
 **  As there is a direct connection between Battery Neg and the 12VDC Distribution Block

My Guess is the White Wire on the Neg Terminal is the Solar Panel Controller Ground with the smaller Red Wire on the POS Terminal the Controller Positive.

Reference:  see below comments

RTWCTS

MuttonChops said:

My 2-cents - - -

My Guess is the White Wire on the Neg Terminal is the Solar Panel Controller Ground with the smaller Red Wire on the POS Terminal the Controller Positive.

Reference:

This is just wrong...

The white wire you reference @DaveC goes to the negative on my Alde for my 2023 400.  @pthomas745 is correct about the red wire. It is for the battery heater. If you were to trace the path, it goes from the positive battery terminal to the battery heater switch in the cubby next to the bed and then returns to the battery at the screw terminal for the heater element. I traced all this when adding batteries to my T@B. Let me know if you need any pics, etc.

DaveC

I think the solar panel inputs are the red and white wires going into the distribution block on the left side of the photo.  The white wire from the bat goes to the Alde ground. The smaller wire connected to the heater terminal on the bat is the heater jumper. @pthomas745 references the BB instructions: "To deactivate the heat-enable function on your heated Battle Born Battery, simply remove the heat-enable jumper wire from the heat-enable post."  So the mystery wire and the jumper must go to the heater disconnect in the bed cubby.

RTWCTS

Additionally, when Battle Born has shipped me heated 100AH batteries (two) they each came with the wiring and a switch in the box.

MuttonChops

@RTWCTS  &  @DaveC . . . . Thank You for correcting the basic '23 400 Battery compartment wiring.

It is odd that nüCamp now connects the Alde ground directly to the Battery Terminal, that would have been useful back in the model 3010 days.  These days we just don't see many model 3020 grounding issues even when the Adle ground does not go to the battery terminal.

pthomas745

Speaking of interesting grounding:  there was a sudden rash of "Overheat Red Fail" errors over on the FB pages the last couple of days.  3 of them were on Alde 3020's.  Resets of the 12V pretty much took care of them.  I realize these are just random, every day occurences with the Alde.  There was some discussions of why this would happen, and the service manual goes through the idea that the glycol has somehow reached 95C (203 degrees F) which I said was a bit far fetched, it could be a faulty sensor or bad relay, etc.  The other comment in the Red Fail description was it could be caused by a "contact fault", which I'm assuming means a short issue or grounding, etc.  With the numerous "red fail" errors reported over the years, with no indication of a bad pump, low glycol, or a glycol temp of 203F...I wonder if Alde is trying to fix another "bad ground" or some sort of power fluctuation in their motherboards? 

Or am I letting my rudimentary electrical knowledge run ahead of me? 

pthomas745

And, I had a look at the 4 battery lithium setup thread, and each battery has the battery heater wiring.  If each of them uses 1.8 amps continuously, this would be a real issue.  I would assume the BMS would only kick on the heaters on a thermostat and the heaters would run on a duty cycle.  Still could be a nasty surprise if you forget to turn that switch off when storing the trailer, even though you turn off the battery disconnect.