Stereo drawing from both house and starter battery banks?

[skunther]

I’ve noticed my starter has been depleting more rapidly than it should, and when viewing the amperage draw on the battery monitor, I noticed that the stereo will draw, depending on the situation, up to 0.4 A from each battery at the same time. I have switched the breaker on and off on both banks and observed the difference. There is also a 12 V charging port that is connected to the stereo breaker, so this will account for some of it. My question though is how the stereo could be wired to both banks at the same time? Am I reading this right? I want to stop the draw from the starter battery, but disconnecting the battery ground turns off the monitor. How can I properly analyze/approach this?

 

[jssailem]

Trace the wires. Often radios are wired to the positive side of a battery

• so that the radio memory is always powered.
• So that you can listen to the radio while all else is shut off

I would start at the radio and follow the leads (positive and negative) till I found them on the source of power. Then differentiate the battery source (house or starter battery) and select the one you desire. You can eliminate the always powered and put the positive connection on the switched breaker. No station memory unless your unit has a battery backup.

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

Basically, the same as what @jssailem said. If you start at the radio and trace back towards your breaker panel, you will find two wires in parallel (one from the house batt. and one from starter batt.) feeding through one wire back to your radio. Hopefully both are past their own breaker.

 

[colemj]

Do you have a 1-2-Both switch on the batteries? If so, is it on 2?

Mark