Quick question--battery hook/up???

[KyBill]

Since my p/u is small, there is not enough room on the tongue for a permanent battery installation.  For dry camping, I intend to use a stand/alone battery that will be placed beside the tongue of my p/u, and will wire direct from the pos/neg battery terminals to the built in receptacle on the tongue.
         
QUESTION??

On my 6 wire (white-green  red-brown  blue-yellow) plug connection, I'm thinking that I should connect only the neg (white wire) to the neg  battery post, and all other wires directly to the pos post.

Would this be the correct method??

[Recumbentman]

NO !!!

The 6 wire plug is only for your tail, running and brake lights. you should have (usually) a set of black (+) and white (-) wires that are separate from the connector. theses are the wires that would get connected to your battery for the inside PU lights. best to back track your wires from the inside of your PU back to the tongue

OH I forgot............... Welcome to PUT

[KyBill]

NO !!!

The 6 wire plug is only for your tail, running and brake lights. you should have (usually) a set of black (+) and white (-) wires that are separate from the connector. theses are the wires that would get connected to your battery for the inside PU lights. best to back track your wires from the inside of your PU back to the tongue

OH I forgot............... Welcome to PUT

I appreciate your response.
My p/u has a 4 post flat that connects to the t/v and this takes care of the running lights (tail-stop-turn-marker) and is probably an add/on, but at least functional.  The 6 post receptacle is built into the trailer tongue, and my first thought was to remove (cut) all wires except the pos & neg and connect these 2 wires direct to the battery; which I think is what you are telling me to do.
Correct???

[rccs]

The six wire recept. in the tongue of the trailer is most likely the manufactures original hookup for the brake,turn and running lights on your camper. Some manufactures used a pigtail to connect from the trailer to the tow vehicle. The flat 4 connector you are referring to was probably added the the camper. What Recumbentman is talking about is two separate wires, a black and a white , that most popups have on the tongue that are the wires to hook power up to for the inside lights,water pump, furnace,etc.  The black wire is for the positive of the battery and the white wire is for the negative.

[wavery]

What make & model PU are we talking about here :confused:

Do you even have electrical devices in your PU?

Is your PU equipped with a converter?

Pictures are worth a thousand words but I agree with the others, what you may be looking at is your trailer light wiring harness. That probably has nothing to do with your camper electrics.

[KyBill]

My P/U is a 2003 "Viking" Mod # 1706.
It has a converter, 12V water pump & light. No trailer brakes.
I purchased it used, and have not used it myself.

I am assuming, that with the T/V connected via the 4 post flat, that I would have power to the converter & whatever 12V item inside the P/U.  If this be the case, then I could simply connect the stand/alone battery to the p/u via a 4 post flat to accomplish what I want, which is to power the interior of the p/u while disconnected from the t/v, and if this be the case, I would have no need for the 6 post connector.
Just don't know which way to go!!!

[wavery]

My P/U is a 2003 "Viking" Mod # 1706.
It has a converter, 12V water pump & light. No trailer brakes.
I purchased it used, and have not used it myself.

I am assuming, that with the T/V connected via the 4 post flat, that I would have power to the converter & whatever 12V item inside the P/U.  If this be the case, then I could simply connect the stand/alone battery to the p/u via a 4 post flat to accomplish what I want, which is to power the interior of the p/u while disconnected from the t/v, and if this be the case, I would have no need for the 6 post connector.
Just don't know which way to go!!!

The 4-post connector is for the trailer lights only.

As stated before, you should find a separate 2-wire connector somewhere on or under the trailer tongue. It will have 1-white wire that should go to a connector on the frame. That is your ground wire. It should have 1-black wire that goes inside the camper, to the converter. That is your positive wire. You will hook those wires to a 12v battery.

The camper is not designed to run off of the tow vehicle battery while camping as this may run your battery down and render your tow vehicle unable to start which would leave you in a real pickle . There are NO wires going from your tow hehicle wiring harness to the converter, that I can assure you (unless someone Micky Moused the wiring, which would be really wrong).

The camper is designed to obtain power from the campers power cord that can be plugged into 110v receptacle at the CG. The converter will convert the 110v AC to 12v DC for running your 12v lights and water pump. Installing a 12v battery is an option for "Dry camping" (no available 110v power).

You must think of the trailer and the camper as 2 separate entities (when talking about wiring). The only exception is that some tow vehicles have a separate 12v hot lead in the trailer harness that is meant for keeping the camper's battery charged up while driving. This takes a 7-pin tow harness and should only be used for towing, not camping. This is NOT even an option with a 4-pin trailer connector.