battery drain

[doonoak]

Does anybody have a good system for locating an unwanted batery drain I have a 2001 coleman cheyyenne and I pissed that 2 times now I did everything right while charging up the battery to go fishing and when I get out to the boonis andpopup my camper the first thing I see is the RED warning low battery power on the lp detector!!! how can I locate the culprit?
Mick

[Nemesis56]

Does anybody have a good system for locating an unwanted batery drain I have a 2001 coleman cheyyenne and I pissed that 2 times now I did everything right while charging up the battery to go fishing and when I get out to the boonis andpopup my camper the first thing I see is the RED warning low battery power on the lp detector!!! how can I locate the culprit?
Mick

The easiest way to locate a battery draw is to :

1) Disconnect the camper from the Tow Vehicle. Disconnect the negative battery cable from the battery on the camper.
2) Hook a testlight between the negative battery cable and the battery on the camper.
3) If the test light lights up you have a draw.  ( Keep in mind, some clocks and/or raidos thermostats etc. will keep a memory.  It's usually alot smaller than 12volts and the light will be considerabley dimmer.)
4) Drop every circuitbreaker/fuse from every circuit until the light goes out.
5) When the light goes out, trace that circuit back to it's source.
6) If the light continues to light up with everything off, that is a good indication your battery has shorted out internally and the only way to quickly and easily test that is to try it with a known good one.

Just from you description it sounds like you have a "sulphated battery" or a shorted battery.  A Sulphated battery will take a surface charge, but will drop to almost nothing under a load.  Ashorted battery will not take a charge at all. The only cure is to repace with a new one and do the above tests again.

Anyway, Goodluck and let us know how it turns out.
Lee

[wynot]

Does anybody have a good system for locating an unwanted batery drain I have a 2001 coleman cheyyenne and I pissed that 2 times now I did everything right while charging up the battery to go fishing and when I get out to the boonis andpopup my camper the first thing I see is the RED warning low battery power on the lp detector!!! how can I locate the culprit?
Mick

Several questions- I apologize if these seem basic...
Are you disconnecting the battery when the camper is parked (and not camping?)
Are you running the fridge on 12V? (Running the fridge on 12V, even with a charge line, can run down your battery.)
Do you have a charge line running from your Tow Vehicle?  If you do, is it hooked up?  I don't know what your TV is, but if you have a GM truck, it may come with a heavy duty tow pkg, but they don't put a fuse in the charge line.
Are you using a charger to charge the battery, and not the converter?

[mudmanmike]

Wynot, When you talk about a charge line, are you saying that you have a wire run from the positive side of the battery on the TV to the trailer connection when the TV is hooked up? I possibly have to run a new charge line on the TV to charge my battery too. It does sound like a bad or dead battery. It probably is good to replace the battery if it's more than 2 years old for some brands.

[wynot]

Wynot, When you talk about a charge line, are you saying that you have a wire run from the positive side of the battery on the TV to the trailer connection when the TV is hooked up? I possibly have to run a new charge line on the TV to charge my battery too. It does sound like a bad or dead battery. It probably is good to replace the battery if it's more than 2 years old for some brands.

My Bargman connector has a 12 V Pos blade directly across from the 12 V Neg blade.  Somehow, this "charge" line is connected to the 12 V Pos - on my old Fords, they had to run a positive line to it, on the Chevy, it has an Aux power fuse terminal in the fuse/relay box, which simply needed a fuse put in the line.
 
It provides some juice to the camper, but it would not be enough to recharge a dead or low battery, especially not if the fridge is on.  So what happens in real life, is that you go dry camping with a low battery, and you get to the campsite, and you still have a low battery because you were running the fridge as well.
 
Hope this answer helps.

[mudmanmike]

Do you know what gauge of wire was used to supply the charge line from the TV battery? I was going to run a 12 gauge wire with a 30 amp fuse to a connector at the hitch which will then connect to the pig tail harness to the trailer. I have already run the barke controller wires on the TV so this is simple for me to do. I just want to make sure I run the correct gauge of wire to prevent any fire or overload risks. Thanks ahead of time.

[wynot]

Do you know what gauge of wire was used to supply the charge line from the TV battery? I was going to run a 12 gauge wire with a 30 amp fuse to a connector at the hitch which will then connect to the pig tail harness to the trailer. I have already run the barke controller wires on the TV so this is simple for me to do. I just want to make sure I run the correct gauge of wire to prevent any fire or overload risks. Thanks ahead of time.

12 gauge sounds about right for the amount of current that will be running back there (probably 10-15 Amps at best).  The real shame is that the TV alternator cuts back system voltage regardless of how low the camper battery is - I guess because the wire just doesn't flow a huge amount of current.  On another note, I wish I had enough clear space under the hood to put a second battery in for charging with an isolator and sufficient size cabling for the amount of current I would like to have recharging a 2d hotel battery quicker.

[mike4947]

Standard for commercial 7 pin setups is 10 gage for the pin 4 aux 12 volt feed. also use 10 gage for the ground as well. You need every bit of size to reduce voltage drop that you can get. A couple of 1/10's of a volt might not sound like much but it can be the difference between charging and not charging.

[AustinBoston]

12 gauge sounds about right for the amount of current that will be running back there (probably 10-15 Amps at best).  The real shame is that the TV alternator cuts back system voltage regardless of how low the camper battery is - I guess because the wire just doesn't flow a huge amount of current.  On another note, I wish I had enough clear space under the hood to put a second battery in for charging with an isolator and sufficient size cabling for the amount of current I would like to have recharging a 2d hotel battery quicker.

Use at least 10 gauge for a charge line, and I reccomend using one size larger (8 ga) for the ground.  It is possible to get 30 amps, but not with a 12 gauge wire.

Camper charge lines need to be fused/breakered at both ends, because there is a very large current source at either end.  A short in the middle needs to be able to either trip a breaker or pop a fuse on each of them, or there will be fire and smoke!  What most do is use a 30 amp fuse in the TV and a 25 amp self-resetting breaker on the camper end.

Austin