Earthing to chassis instead of wire

[kulty]

hi all this is my first post so please be gentle my question is for wiring up my DC to DC charger can I run a Earth from the battery to the chassis close to the battery and then pull that negative line off at the rear of the vehicle to run into my Anderson plug for the trailer ? the wire is heck expensive, but I am failing to see why I can use this method. any insight to something I'm missing ? I'd run my 2 gauge positive wire all the way of course, but why am I wasting money in a negative or am I missing the point ? thanks all, I appreciate your time.

kulty -Perth

 

[Triton14]

Hi & welcome to Earth.

Yes they do say its best to go back to the primary battery but my set up that you can see in my signature goes to the chassis rail directly under the aux battery & I have not had any issues.

The only thing I would say is they I did rub the point of contact back with some sandpaper as if your chassis rail or contact point is painted or powder coated then you wont get a decent earth.

 

[kulty]

Hi & welcome to Earth.

Yes they do say its best to go back to the primary battery but my set up that you can see in my signature goes to the chassis rail directly under the aux battery & I have not had any issues.

The only thing I would say is they I did rub the point of contact back with some sandpaper as if your chassis rail or contact point is painted or powder coated then you wont get a decent earth.

yea I was thinking the same thing, I'd make a good connection both ends, nice, tight and clean, awesome to know someone else is doing it and I'm not crazy, sweet, I wire it is with short ends to the chassis, cheers mate, if youre ever at my camp, grab a beer from the fridge

 

[cam04]

I have used chassis return on this Ute. Beer is still cold.

 

[CTL]

Welcome to Earth.
Yes you can do a chassis return BUT ensure your earth points are solid, clean of paint and checked/maintained regularly. A lot of 12 volt issues are caused by faulty earth issues.
And yes, best practice is to add a similar sized negative cable to chassis from your cranking battery. Most people neglect to do this and cause themselves other issues.
If you have 10 year old of less vehicle, make sure all your connections to the cranking battery are to the correct terminals are you will bypass your vehicle’s shunt which will result in an underperforming alternator.

 

[Lost1?]

The owners manual should show earth points that were designed into the vehicle you could use. From memory there are 2 a either end of my ute. I don't think this would be much different on other makes.

 

[McGinnis]

Check resistance/voltage drop if you can. Ensure good contact. I wouldn’t do it myself but it’s likely to be fine.

 

[kulty]

Check resistance/voltage drop if you can. Ensure good contact. I wouldn’t do it myself but it’s likely to be fine.

thanks for caring mate, nah it's fine to do, and I did I fact run a resistance test 5 ohms .. that'll be the steel. take 10 meters of copper wire and measure it. I'm tipping therell be more resistance