What if ????? (Batteries) + also, parallel vs single.

[john59]

Thanks for good stuff---about 4 replys down I talk about parallel vs single battery charging from my pickup.

Dry camping. Running on two 12V RV/Marine-----Darn ! ! ! I left the frigger frazmatolsis on and it killed my 2 batteries in the 5r.

I have a tool to raise/lower the landing gear.

UH-OH-----The slideout. I have to crawl under the 5r with a open end wrench and crank that square bar a zillion times to close the slideout.

OR

Can I hook up my plug from the pick-up to the 5r, reving up the rpms on the truck gas burner, hopefully generating enough juice to close the slideout.

OR

Is there another option.
john

 

[clkelley]

If your truck is set up to charge the RV battery when you are towing, then yes. Just hook up the connector, crank the truck and run it for a bit.

That's what I did the one time I dry camped at Auburn's campus. I ran the truck for about 30 minutes one morning to make sure my battery didn't discharge too low.

 

[mnsprk]

Plugging it into the truck should do the trick as long as the charging wire from the engine to the back is heavy enough.

 

[Tigger1966]

You can do that but you run the risk of blowing the fuse that protects the charge lead on the truck. It may also do damage to the 7 way connector I have seen them melted before.
As was mentioned the best thing to do is let the battery charge for a while then you should be fine with the slide room and the landing gear.

 

[john59]

Some more good stuff.

Hopefully I will be able to dodge killing the batteries till I come up with a generator.

Disconnecting the 2 parallel batteries and just charging one from the truck seems logical to get the juice flowing for the landing gear and slideroom.

OR

Does it really matter if I leave them in a parallel hookup ??????????

Thanks, john

 

[bigdisneydaddy]

Running any battery down to nothing will shorten its service life, even deep cycles should not be taken below 50% capacity on a regular basis.

We dry camped in Yellowstone and had to charge the batterys after the 2nd full day, I pulled my truck next to the trailer and ran my jumper cables to the trailer batterys, 15 min later they were all charged up. I use 2 12V deep cycles wired parallel. You could however wire 2 6v batterys in series and have 12v coming out and probably more amp hours but I am cheap and these are the batterys I have for now.

As others have said, if you want to charge off your trailer plug feed you will need to give it some time, makes sure and shut everything off in your truck so that your alternator will have the capacity to charge the trailer batterys.

 

[bigdisneydaddy]

Some more good stuff.




Does it really matter if I leave them in a parallel hookup ??????????

Thanks, john

Thats the only way you can wire them if they are both 12v and your trailer is 12v, in series would net you 24v and your trailer wont like that. Make sure the cables between the 2 batteries is properly gauged.

 

[disney4dan]

Hey John,

Sounds like you have what you need for advice on restoring them for the short term.

When we started dry camping years ago we purchased two 6-volt batteries from CarQuest for about $120 each. A local distributor for Trojan batteries has them for about $145 each and they will usually get us through a 3 or 4 day weekend of careful use. I am on my second set of the CarQuest and they seem to be fairly bullet proof. They are heavy! I dread going to pull them out of the cases today to put them on the trickle charge for the winter. I have visions of blowing out my back one of these days, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

We purchased a Generac iX2000 watt inverter generator this year for about $560 at our local True Value hardware store and that has helped a lot when we need to run the furnace at night. This genset comes with a 12volt outlet on the front and battery charging cables. I find that is the best way to keep the batteries topped off. It is also very quiet.

 

[bigdisneydaddy]

Hey John,

Sounds like you have what you need for advice on restoring them for the short term.

When we started dry camping years ago we purchased two 6-volt batteries from CarQuest for about $120 each. A local distributor for Trojan batteries has them for about $145 each and they will usually get us through a 3 or 4 day weekend of careful use. I am on my second set of the CarQuest and they seem to be fairly bullet proof. They are heavy! I dread going to pull them out of the cases today to put them on the trickle charge for the winter. I have visions of blowing out my back one of these days, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

We purchased a Generac iX2000 watt inverter generator this year for about $560 at our local True Value hardware store and that has helped a lot when we need to run the furnace at night. This genset comes with a 12volt outlet on the front and battery charging cables. I find that is the best way to keep the batteries topped off. It is also very quiet.

Have you ever thought about wiring a small float charger onto them and just leaving them ? or do you store your RV away from the house ?