We have had tent campers, travel trailers, 5th wheelers and now a destination trailer and i never had to replace the battery. But the time is coming real soon. This may be a stupid question but will not be my first. Should I turn off the electric feed to my Rv before I disconnect the battery? What happens if I remove the battery to take to a supplier and I leave the shore power turned off? What do I need to know?

I would leave the RV plugged in. The converter should supply and run the RV just fine while the battery is out for exchange. Fridge and other items need 12 volts to operate properly.Take a picture of the battery cables and/or mark them clearly what terminal they belong to before you remove anything. If you have a battery switch use it. Keep the main positive cable from touching anything. Wear eye protection.

time2roll wrote:I would leave the RV plugged in. The converter should supply and run the RV just fine while the battery is out for exchange. Fridge and other items need 12 volts to operate properly.Take a picture of the battery cables and/or mark them clearly what terminal they belong to before you remove anything.The destination trailer has electric frig, etc. Has propane furnace and stove range..

If you have solar, some solar controllers must have a battery connected whenever the solar panels are connected. With one of those you should disconnect the solar panels from the controller before removing the battery.Otherwise, turning the battery disconnect switch off (assuming you have one) and possibly turning the AC power off (depends on what converter you have) are all that are electrically necessary. Taking pictures of the battery setup before you disconnect the wires (and marking them) so as to know what ones go where when you get the new battery is often a very good idea. If any of the terminals are questionable or need cleaning it's a great opportunity to take care of that.If you remove the battery and have the shore power turned off, you just have a trailer with no power anywhere for anything. It's kind of like your house when there's a power outage. You should avoid towing it down the road without a battery as the breakaway brake system won't be operational; in many states, in fact, it would be illegal to do so. That's obviously not a concern for just having it sit in one place.

Patrick45 wrote:Should I turn off the electric feed to my Rv before I disconnect the battery?Cardinal rule when connecting / disconnecting any electrical circuit is to first turn power off completely, then do your connection / disconnection. If once the battery has been removed and you want power back on just make sure the connections that normally fasten to the battery terminals are taped up so they can't inadvertently short out. When you install the new battery turn the power off again, make your connections, and turn everything back on again. This way you'll be ensured you'll never short anything out. And please, when you do hook up your new battery make absolutely sure you've connected it correctly - positive cable to the battery's positive terminal, negative to negative. You'd be surprised how many get this wrong. :R

The procedure replacing my rV BATTERY | Good Sam Community

12 Replies

Patrick45
Explorer
Mar 31, 2017
time2roll wrote:
I would leave the RV plugged in. The converter should supply and run the RV just fine while the battery is out for exchange. Fridge and other items need 12 volts to operate properly.

Take a picture of the battery cables and/or mark them clearly what terminal they belong to before you remove anything.

The destination trailer has electric frig, etc. Has propane furnace and stove range..
time2roll
Nomad
Mar 31, 2017
I would leave the RV plugged in. The converter should supply and run the RV just fine while the battery is out for exchange. Fridge and other items need 12 volts to operate properly.

Take a picture of the battery cables and/or mark them clearly what terminal they belong to before you remove anything. If you have a battery switch use it. Keep the main positive cable from touching anything. Wear eye protection.

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The procedure replacing my rV BATTERY

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