Batt. hooked up while towing

[Gabe]

Ok now that I've got a Batt. set up do I keep it plugged in while I'm towing, and does it charge like the TV does?

BTW this is a 05 yuma

[wavery]

Ok now that I've got a Batt. set up do I keep it plugged in while I'm towing, and does it charge like the TV does?

BTW this is a 05 yuma

This is an option but it certainly is not necessary unless you are going to be running your fridge (on 12V) while towing or have no other way of charging your PU battery.

If you leave your house with the battery fully charged and run your fridge on propane while towing, there is little up side to running a charging line.

[Gabe]

This is an option but it certainly is not necessary unless you are going to be running your fridge (on 12V) while towing or have no other way of charging your PU battery.

If you leave your house with the battery fully charged and run your fridge on propane while towing, there is little up side to running a charging line.

Well I don't have a fridge in mine so it sounds like I don't need to plug it in until I get to the CG. cool thanks

[mlslocks]

Well I don't have a fridge in mine so it sounds like I don't need to plug it in until I get to the CG. cool thanks

If you have brakes on the camper you need the battery for the emergency breakaway.

[tlhdoc]

If your camper has a break away brake switch, you need a battery to power the brakes if you have a separation of the trailer and TV.  You should charge the battery with a 3 stage "smart" charger and not count on the TV to charge it.

[Gabe]

If you have brakes on the camper you need the battery for the emergency breakaway.

No brake away switch, I will charge it with my charger before each trip. Now if I'm at the camp site is it wise to hook up to the TV and let it run for awhile or is that pointless?

[A2SuperCrew]

No brake away switch, I will charge it with my charger before each trip. Now if I'm at the camp site is it wise to hook up to the TV and let it run for awhile or is that pointless?

Good question!  I wonder if charging it with a set of jumper cables hooked to the TV would work better?  :confused:

[AustinBoston]

No brake away switch, I will charge it with my charger before each trip. Now if I'm at the camp site is it wise to hook up to the TV and let it run for awhile or is that pointless?

While it would not be pointless, it would take significant time to fully charge the battery that way.  The cost of wear on the TV engine has, in a few cases, been shown to be more than the cost of a small generator.

Austin

[wynot]

No brake away switch, I will charge it with my charger before each trip. Now if I'm at the camp site is it wise to hook up to the TV and let it run for awhile or is that pointless?

Don't you have a Coleman/Fleetwood camper with brakes?  I can't imagine you not having a breakaway switch...

[aw738]

Alternators are NOT battery chargers. Never have been.

[A2SuperCrew]

We just returned from a week in the Smoky Mountains.  (WOW!)

Anyway, I ran the fridge on DC during our 11 hour drive drive to get there.  In the past, I have always done this without any problem.  Late last fall I added a battery to the PUP.  This was our first big trip using it.  

When we arrived at our destination, the battery was completly dead.  It had been fully charged using a battery charger prior to leaving.  It appears the fridge used up the battery, rather than draw power from the TV.  Here's the kicker.  The fridge door had been somehow knocked off it's hinges, so it must have run constantly trying to keep cold.  (What a mess!)

I was able to re-charge the battery by hooking up a 500 Watt inverter directly to the engine in my TV, then plug in the PUP's shore power to the inverter.  It wasn't fully charged using this method, but enought so we could use the water pump, and our new LED overhead lights after disconnecting from the truck.  

A fellow camper explained to me something about the charge wire in my TV harness not being large enough to carry current to both run the fridge, and charge the battery, so once the battery was used up, the fridge hogged all the bandwidth to keep running.

I think in the future I will disconnect the battery until I really need it to prevent accidental draining.    It seems that if the battery is hooked up, components in the trailer will draw from it.  Even when it's just parked in storage.  (I notice the propane detector light is on, even when the top is down.)

For the drive home, I ran the fridge on propane!

[wavery]

Sounds to me like that was a fruitful (all-be-it painful) experience. Thanks for sharing.

I never bothered hooking up a 12v charging line to my trailer for the very reasons that you listed. It's always a good idea to unplug your camper battery when not in use and running the fridge on propane is far more effective than running on 12v.

I think that it's a good investment to carry a second battery. You can buy a group 29, deep cycle battery for around $100 and a covered battery box (with a carrying handle) from Wal-mart or most auto parts stores is about $10. Remember to keep it fully charged and don't let it discharge in storage. It's nice to have that extra power and it should give you enough power for most 3-day camp-outs without having to charge again. If your 1st battery goes dead on an extended camp-out, swap it out for the extra battery and put the 1st one on a charger. Even if you are dry-camping, I'm sure that a neighbor, with hook-ups, would be happy to let you use his power to charge your battery.

[AustinBoston]

I think in the future I will disconnect the battery until I really need it to prevent accidental draining.

In most states, this is illegal while towing if you have electric brakes.  The reason is that the battery is necessary for the breakaway brakes to work, and most states require breakaway brakes if the trailer has brakes.  This is a non-issue with surge brakes because the brakeaway mechanism does not need 12V to work.

Disconnecting while in storage is standard operating procedure for many of us, at least when not connected to shore power.

Otherwise, your experience is far worse than I would have expected (and far worse than others have experienced).  Many people find their battery partly drained, but if it really was dead (IIRC, dead is below 11.5 volts), there was almost certanly a problem with either the charge line or the ground connection.  Even a poor charge line should be able to provide some current.  A very poor one should be able to supply 4 amps at 12.7 volts (I would still consider this line defective); this would not be enough to run the fridge, but the battery would only make up the difference.  As the battery voltage dropped, the charge line would be forced to supply more current, slowing down the rate at which the battery discharged.  There would come a point where the charge line would supply all of the current.  If that did not happen until the battery was dead, then something was seriously wrong with the charge line.

If you don't have a charge line (such as with 4-wire connector), then a dead battery is exactly what I would have expected.

OTOH, a half-drained battery would not surprise me at all.  If you are dry camping, use propane while driving.  It works better (assuming it doesn't blow out), and doesn't use electricity.

Austin

[A2SuperCrew]

I've got surge brakes, so disconnecting won't be a saftey issue.  We had driven nearly 12 hours that day to get down to our campground.  (Down in North Carolina, but Up in the mountains!  I have no idea when the fridge door got knocked off, but am sure that is a contributing factor.  I do have a charge line from the TV. (7 pin connector)  I drove the entire trip with my lights on as well.  Could that have contributed?

There is a 30 amp fuse in the battery line that I've pull out to prevent the battery from being drained while in storage, or traveling.  It is now charged and ready to go again.  

I think I'll just stick to propane to run the fridge in transit.  

[AustinBoston]

I drove the entire trip with my lights on as well.  Could that have contributed?

Possibly.  If the trailer has an inadequate ground (using the ball/coupler is inadequate), then having the headlights (which would include the running lights) would put more current through the ground, causing it's voltage to rise.

The ground wire should always be AT LEAST one size larger than any other wire to the trailer, because it is carrying all of the return current of all of the other wires.  Having good connections is also very important.

Austin