I went camping this past weekend and I thought that the truck would charge the battery on the camper(deep cycle marine battery)while we were driving down the road. But that doesnt seem to be happening. Is this suppost to be happening or do I need to do some other wiring to make this happen. I want to be able to hook up my 7 pin plug on the camper to the truck and be able to recharge the battery on the camper by doing this. Is this possible and how can I check to be sure that it is happening. Long story short I killed the batterys on both my truck and the camper and was back in the middle of no where with one alternative a long walk for help. want to make sure this doesnt happen again. The wife was not happy. any help appreciated.

 

Possible, and should probably be happening. Might be a problem with the camper battery itslf. Mine and most charge from one of those 7 wires; put a volt meter on the camper battery to see if it's charging when hooked up - you should be seeing around 14 volts if it's charging, and less when uplugged from truck.

 

depending on the year of the tow vehicle, it may be as simple as adding a fuse, or hard as adding a circuit from the battery to the trailer plug.
i assume you are talking about the 86 F350??
if so, you will have to run a circuit back from the battery.
newer trucks have everything there already, and all you need to do is put a fuse in the fusebox to get power to the plug.

 

let me clarify something I have a 12v constant power source at the plug in the rear of the truck (86 f-350) I was assuming this would charge the battery on the camper. It is a brand new deep cycle marine battery. I will try to check the voltage and see if I am getting the 14v that was mentioned with the truck running and plug hooked up.

 

You may want to make it 12v hot with key on only. This will charge battery while driving but won't discharge battery in truck when the truck is off. Depending on how dead the battery is will depend on how long the truck is running. It will take a long time to charge a battery in trailer by using the small wire in the 7 pin.

 

................constant power???,that's what drained the truck battery while you were parked,you should only have power to the rv with the truck key on,every thing on an rv is controled with 12 volt even if your pluged in running 125 volt's in an rv park,the AC board,referagetorboard,the water heater board,LPG gas leak detector,CO2 dector and your 12 volt light's,try 2- 6 volt golf cart battery's for longer run time's dry camping,tie the neg & pos post's on the 2- 6 volt's together to get 12 volt's from them and if dry camping for a long time get a small generater to run a battery charger or a big one to run the whole rig including the AC if that's allowed where your camped.

 

If you plan to do some camping your truck should be equipped with a battery isolator, that way you won't be left with a low or dead starting battery. Diagrams and a good explaination are available at this site.

http://www.bcae1.com/battiso.htm

Of the two types the diode isolator is probably the best choice for your rig, its also the simplest to wire up. Also this could mean running a new wire from the isolator.

If you are using "True Deep Cycle" batteries (no cranking amp rating, marine batteries are not usually true deep cycle) it would be best to have an isolator rated in the 140 amp range to prevent burn out.
If stopping to camp then maybe you should also consider solar setup to maintain a daytime charging while you are stopped for whatever reason.
It takes a lot of charging to fully charge a deep cell battery, unless you are driving at least 5 to six hours each day depending on use it will rarely be fully charged.

Just some ideas, I have a motor home, an early morning on the road might have the microwave, the toaster and the coffee maker draining their fair share of amps from the batteries along with the water pump and fridge.

Cheers Willis

 

Get the biggest solar panel you can afford and it should stay charged up ready to go
at all times. If you can get a good array you can run most of everything from them
and not have to worry about hooking up to power. My brother has a mobile solar
trailer he brings around and powers the stage at outdoor concerts, He runs the lights
and the instruments of course he has some bad a$$ batteries. A smaller rig could be
setup for your rv. I would at least put 2 batteries and a perko battery switch it will
allow you to choose from OFF, batt 1, batt 2 or both batteries for double the amperage. http://www.jamestowndistributors.com...itch+-+Keylock
http://www.solarcharger.com/s.nl;jse...2&category=114
I would seriously consider switching the lights to led the luxeon series are superbright
you could buy ready to go leds but you can make them yourself for a lot cheaper.
That alone will save you a bunch of amps right there and if you make them your self
and use the white leds and add a red and a yellow or even a blue too you can get a
good color out of the light, say you have the room for 8 leds in the socket put 5 white
and 1 red, 1 blue and 1 yellow!!
http://www.theledlight.com/ Putting them on your truck and the trailer brake lights,
running lights etc will allow more of the trucks amperage to be used for charging the
trailer batteries.

 

My experience has been that if the RV battery is low, and you try charging it or them with the tow vehicle battery, while on a trip to the campground, it will not do the trick. About all the charging system on the tow vehicle is good for, is maintaining a charge in the tow vehicle itself, and possibly in the RV as well. But it will do a poor job of pumping up low batterries.

Before I go camping, I put my batteries (2) on a charger for 12 hours before I leave. I never store my batteries in a low or discharged state. So in other words, if when I am done camping, if my batteries are low, I charge them to full capacity before I store the RV. I know it seems like a pain, but I have expensive dual 6 volt set up, and I cannot afford to ruin my batteries. Plus it is a pain to end up at a campground at night with low or discharged batteries.

 

Couldn't agree more. I also start out with a fully charged set of batteries (2 6volt golf cart batteries). For the most part we don't camp until we get to our destination, just overnighting where it is allowed. Even in warm weather after a week of use, with driving from morning till evening the batteries do get gradually depleted down to 12 volts (which is considered to be almost discharged), The alternator can charge the batteries enough for frugal usage. It has been said, you can only deep cell discharge a battery (below 12 volts) just so many times before it's permanently damaged.
We use portable fluorescent lamps during the night time for lighting, everything else (except the stereo which has its own 120vac power supply) is operated off the house batteries.

When the furnace is in use during cooler spells, we dispense with the use of the microwave as it draws 125 amps from the batts. during usage.

Today after some consideration about solar power (very expensive) we decided on purchasing one of those 3000 watt portable generators to meet our RV'ing electrical needs, for the amount of time we use the rig each year this is most economical route for us to follow. Along with that the generator will be available for power outages during a storm.

For battery maintenance, each week using a ceramic heater I draw the batteries down close to 12 volts, then let them recharge from the converter. The battery shop where I bought them claimed the result of this action will be a longer battery life. This was after a trip where I added distilled water that brought the SG down so low they couldn't be charged with those dinky auto chargers that charged for several hours then kept showing a Battery fault.

Cheers Willis

 

You should also disconnect the batteries if the camper is stored. The CO and LP detectors will keep running if you don't and discharge the batteries over time, even with everything turned off.

 

battery isolator & jumperpack (just in case) i always carry one camping & boating.

 

I am needing help with wiring my truck to charge my battery in my camper without draining my truck.

What are my best options for doing this, ant links with wiring diagrams would diffinetly help me