I recently bought a camper and it's the kind that sits in the bed of the pickup. It sits on the truck nice, rides nice and all that good stuff. I have the 7-pin trailer connector on my truck that mates to the camper through a 6-pin connection on the camper end. I've figured out pretty much all of the wiring from the truck to the camper (because it wasn't standardized and I would hate to see the previous camper owner's truck wiring) but i've come across a problem. Most of the equipment in the camper runs on 12VDC and it all functions while the key is on in the truck, but when I turn the key to the off position, it cuts power to the camper.

I know that I have the towing package and in it is included the two relays for the trailer battery charge and the reverse light relay. The camper does not have a battery in it to supply it's own power either. I would like to install one in it but do not see a place (so the camper doesn't leach my battery until it is dead). I do want to add a spare battery to my truck as well but that will be done in the future. I basically want to ask for opinions on what would be the best way to bypass the trailer battery charge relay to have constant power in the trailer while it is hooked up. I have a couple of options that I have thought of, but wanted to know if anyone had any better ideas or has run across a similar situation.

1. Bypass the relay and fuse it so that it has constant power at the trailer connection all the time. Don't know if I want constant power back there just in case some kid comes by and thinks it would be funny to stick foreign metal objects into my trailer connector.

2. Install a toggle switch to energize the relay on demand, only when it is needed of course, and have the ability to have power on demand. I'm not sure what relay it is though and don't know which wire to energize to activate the relay.

3. Install one or two batteries in the camper and leave the system as normal so that when the truck is running, it charges them up and i'm good to go. I like this idea the best but don't know where in the tralier I could put them so I can vent them and not build up hydrogen gas inside the camper. Kind of want to stay away from the rolling bomb situation.

Does anyone have any other ideas or input as to what would be best? Sorry for the long winded post, I seem to get like that sometimes. Thanks!

 

Here is something to start with, dual battery isolator.
One battery is always ready to start the truck.

Dual Battery Isolator from PPL for Sale

Most auto stores carry these.

 

Hey bud me and my brother were in the same situation when we bought our first slide in camper a few years ago. The wiring in the camper was a complete and utter mess, so we ripped it all out and started fresh. We put a plug in the front of the camper, and its attached to about a 6 foot long cord, the cord runs down in between the bed of the truck and the cab. Then we put a connector on the frame rail of the truck. Then we just taped into the wires that are running to the back of the truck for the lights. What we ended up doing was just running a positive wire from where the batteries get wired into the fuse box. We took this wire and wired it to a switch like this one - Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices and then we ran it back and wired it to the plug. This way when we put the camper on we just pop the hood, put the key into the switch, turn it to on, and the camper can run off of the truck. When we are done with the camper, we simply pop the hood, and take the key out, that way there is no batter drain at all.

We have been using this exact set up now since about 2005 and we haven't had a single issue with it yet.

Sorry for the long post, but I felt like typing today!

 

That sounds like a pretty good idea, but i've never messed with these before. How do they isolate? I'm guessing something like the alternator inputs into the device and it has two seperate outputs going to two individual batteries. The truck would run off of one of these and the camper would leach off of the one that isn't being used. Would this be correct?

I've used these before in the boating world and they work awesome. I was looking more towards something with the wiring provided on the truck already. I might see if I can find a place to install and vent a battery in the camper. That way, if I remove the camper from the truck, I will still have battery power in the camper. When I start the truck, while it's hooked up to the harness, it would charge the trailer batteries.

Thank you guys for the ideas, and keep em coming.