Charge Line Cost

2chiefsRus wrote:
Toad Charge
This is what we use. Don't know how much a dealer would charge you to install it.

I installed it myself and didn't use the conductors in the existing umbilical cable because I wanted to make sure the wire I used was sized properly. I zip-tied the wire provided in the Toad Charge kit to the coiled Blue Ox umbilical cable so I can handle it as a single package.

As for installation, we have a DP so the battery bank is near the rear. It was actually pretty easy and I'm not the most mechanically inclined person.

As for the Toad Charge being too expensive, I didn't think the ~$80 to be a bad deal Toad Charge. You get a circuit breaker (I don't believe the RVi kit includes this), a charge controller (that prevents the toad's battery from receiving charge unless the MH is running and also prevents backflow from the toad to the MH battery) plus all necessary wire and connectors.

From what I can see online t appears that the RVi kit assumes that power will flow to the toad through the existing umbilical rather than a separate wire. Some of the cables I've seen people use as umbilicals have conductors that are way too thin to handle any significant current flow. Remember, with ~40 feet of wire there can be significant voltage drop.

I'm sure I could have found all the pieces separately and saved a few bucks, but IMHO sometimes it's nice to have everything packaged for you. I didn't have to run to Home Depot even once during the installation!

You have a 2005 MH so most probably have 7 pin connector with one pin carrying a fused 12 current. All that has to be done is to pick up mating pin on towed car connector (6 or 7 pin - not 4 pin) then run a #12 wire to from towed connector to battery, add an in line 20amp fuse then connect to positive terminal of battery. Material cost is about $1 for wire, about $4 for fuse holder and fuse, negligible for terminal on end of wire, about $3 for wire loom to protect wire from chafing and about half hour labor at most.

If you don't have 12 v current pin on your motorhome trailer plug (that is hot only when ignition switch is in on position) then add wire from your coach battery to one of the empty pins on the connector, 20 amp in line fuse and about 1/2 hour labor.

2chiefsRus wrote:
Toad Charge
This is what we use. Don't know how much a dealer would charge you to install it.

I've seen that Toad Charge system. Always thought it was a bit expensive, and made things a bit more complicated than it needed to be. I like RVi's towed battery charger product much better. Costs half as much, and much more simple to install. If I was to purchase a product for this, it would be the RVi unit.

You can have the dealer install a product like that, or have them do it the simple way I and many others have - Just run a (fused on both ends!) wire between + terminal of MH and + terminal of towed vehicle. Usually, there will already be a fused charge wire you can use on the back of the MH, so you just have to wire that through your umbilical cord to + terminal of towed battery. Ground should already be provided in the tail light wiring, so you only have to route one wire to + terminal.

As to what the dealer would charge: Should not really be that much, especially if you have them do it as part of the deal when they're doing the wiring for tail-lights, anyway. I'd guess no more than an extra 1/2 hour or hour labor plus the parts.

on my winnebago voyage 2007 there was no power to the 7 pin plug on the RV I ran a wire from the battery line at the generator to the 7 pin plug. then a 6 wire to the toad.

Toad Charge
This is what we use. Don't know how much a dealer would charge you to install it.

JL7456,
If you are starting from scratch and buying everything new, you would buy the 6 wire umbilical instead of a 4 wire. As far as running the Charge Line goes. On my RV it was already at the back of the RV, so all I had to do was run the wire from the Toad Plug to the battery through an in-line fuse. Took maybe 5 minutes more effort.