Wiring two 6 Volt batteries together HELP!

Ok..I am confused!!!! I am trying to wire my two 6V batteries in a series and can't seem to figure it out. I look at diagrams online and it shows jumping the two batteries together from pos to neg then the pos from the coach to a pos terminal and the neg from the generator to the neg. Then I have a white cable coming from the coach that I don't know what to do with. Thinking it was simply a ground, I hooked it to one of the batteries and when I flipped the switch the lights were dim. So I plugged the coach in to charge them and things started to sizzle and smell so I quickly unplugged everything!! So what did I do wrong? All the wiring diagrams I look at for this procedure only show using three cable..neg, pos and a jumper between the two. What the heck do I do with the white one coming from the coach???? When we took delivery there was only one 12V battery and all the cables were attached to it so I am thoroughly confused.

http://www.zbattery.com/Connecting-Batteries-in-Series-or-Parallel

The white cable is the same as black or NEGATIVE. The Red cable is POSITIVE. The above link has a good illustration of series wiring of 6 volt batteries to achieve 12 volts.

John

on ours, both red wires form the trailer are on one battery pos terminal, then jumper from neg to other positive, and thw white wire to the other negitive terminal.

LOL..ok now you guys have me confused again! I have a white, red and black cable. The diagrams only show using a red, black and jumper. Which terminal do I connect the white one to? and, what is it for? If you say the white is the same as black or neg, why isnt it depicted that way in any diagram? The black one comes from the generator and the white and red ones come out of the coach. I have it hooked up the way you guys say and thats when it started smoking and sizzling. wtf?

The coach side white is negative, and coach side red positive. The generator will need to be connected (bonded) at the battery at the output side of the positive (goes to the starter solenoid on the generator) and the negative output side will go to the generator "battery negative" bolt on the generator. The cable color between the negative and positive jumper is your choice. But nothing should be connected to the jumper post other than the jumper cable. Hope this makes sense.

John

Got it!!!! Thanks newbie! That was my problem. I had the white on a neg terminal with the jumper. After switching it, voila!! Thanks guys, totally appreciate the advise!

Mark, glad you got it figured out. Just hope you didn,t let TOO much smoke out of the wires. Bob

It was only connected for less than 20 sec before I realized what was happening. It's plugged in today and everything is working great!

Mark, great to here that all systems are a go. With new rigs. cars and trucks you have to be really...really careful. Most computors are very sensitive to voltage spikes. Also most are only protected on the B+ side, not the negative/ground side. 12 volts send the wrong will just smoke them. Bob