Richard: If I am understanding how you have this wired then I think you may have created a problem. Who told you to connect the alternator directly to the battery? You said that the terminal on battery 1 got hot. What were the conditions? Engine off? Engine running, most electricl off? Engine running, stereo belting out some serious volume? Heat is caused by current flowing through a resistance. Resistance can be from too small of a wire or a bad connection. From your description I can not tell what the size of the wire is from the battery, through the perko switch to the starter. If the wire is too small then just starting the engine could make the wire very hot (it could also make the starter not work very well!). It also sounds like you have forced all the current from the alternator to flow through the battery post. Normally, the current that runs all the electrical system splits off from the starter, and only the charging current flow to the battery. It is possible that passing all the current that the stereo would draw through the battery post is causing it to heat up. To start with, I would make sure that the battery connections are TIGHT!. I hate the wing nuts that are supplied on marine batteries, these are responsible for more bad connections than anything else. If you have wing nuts, get a pair of pliers and make sure they are tight, or replace the wing nuts with a hex head nut. All the wires leading to the battery need to be a fairly large size. You mentioned 4 awg wire, that is a bit small in my opinion, especially if you are passing 150 amps through it. Rod
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