Trucks 12 volt power lead to trailer battery
How many amps can I expect to recover during a 8 hour drive. Say I use 30 amps per night boondocking and then hit the road again. I have a 150 amp alt. I have 2 twelve volt deep cycle batteries. The o...
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X2 on 6-8AMPS... It is at this DC CURRENT mostly because of the size of the small wire between the Alternator and the 7-way connector with the trailer plugged into it...
This is almost like a trickle charge since you will be having a parasitic drain from the trailer to contend with all the time...
When driving you have to leave the trailer 12V Battery connected to satisfy the DOT Safety requirement for emergency breakaway feature to apply Brakes in the event the trailer becomes disconnected while being towed. If you could disconnect all of the parasitic loads then the battery could be charged up faster...
I clamped-on the lead once with my Sears CLAMP-ON DC current meter with everything hooked up and the truck motor running and read right at 8AMPS DC Current.
In my case i beefed up on additional batteries and beefed up cables from my on-board converter/charger unit so I can get to my destination points without dropping my batteries to their 50% charge state point... Then I just look at the 6-8 DC amps coming from the truck start battery system when in tow mode as icing on the cake only...
Some folks have beefed up the truck start battery lead back to the 7-way trailer connector to get more DC amps back to the trailer...
Again in my case I try not to do hardly anything to the truck start battery setup for fear I will kill something on the truck side as this is the only way to get back home...
Roy ken
This is almost like a trickle charge since you will be having a parasitic drain from the trailer to contend with all the time...
When driving you have to leave the trailer 12V Battery connected to satisfy the DOT Safety requirement for emergency breakaway feature to apply Brakes in the event the trailer becomes disconnected while being towed. If you could disconnect all of the parasitic loads then the battery could be charged up faster...
I clamped-on the lead once with my Sears CLAMP-ON DC current meter with everything hooked up and the truck motor running and read right at 8AMPS DC Current.
In my case i beefed up on additional batteries and beefed up cables from my on-board converter/charger unit so I can get to my destination points without dropping my batteries to their 50% charge state point... Then I just look at the 6-8 DC amps coming from the truck start battery system when in tow mode as icing on the cake only...
Some folks have beefed up the truck start battery lead back to the 7-way trailer connector to get more DC amps back to the trailer...
Again in my case I try not to do hardly anything to the truck start battery setup for fear I will kill something on the truck side as this is the only way to get back home...
Roy ken
