Advice Needed re Camper Electrical Problem
Hi- I have a 2004 Alpenlite Santa Fe 1150 on a 2007 Dodge. In December of 2014 One of the two batteries was forcibly removed (stolen) from its compartment. When I noticed, I made sure that the remaining battery was still connected properly and the cables from the stolen one weren't touching anything they shouldn't touch. (It's unknown if the cables touched things they shouldn't have touched during the theft.)
In this past year since the theft, I've noticed problems with the battery condition showing on the panel as "Fair" or "Poor," even after replacing the stolen battery. The panel didn't show "Good" for very long. This past November, I replaced the older, non-stolen battery. So now I have two new deep cycle (not dual purpose ****) batteries. However, the battery condition continues to fall short of where it used to.
When I went to the storage yard to put the camper back on the truck, the batteries were dead. I backed up the truck under the cabover of the camper and plugged it in. It did nothing. After leaving the truck running with the cable plugged in awhile, to no avail, I pulled the truck alongside the camper, opened the hood, and used jumper cables right to one of the batteries. That let me get the camper generator to start up. Then, the generator gave me power so I could run the jacks.
I took the rig to a repair shop last week, and they found some interesting things. First, the plug on the roof between the solar panel and the camper was broken, so the solar panel was doing nothing. So they fixed that. That would explain why the batteries were completely dead even with the camper in a yard exposed to all-day sunlight.
However, there were other strange findings at the shop. With the truck running and camper plugged in, the voltage coming into the battery compartment was about 12.3 or 12.4. Then they tested the voltage directly at the cable connecting the truck to the camper, and the voltage was 14.something. (There's an intermediate plug between the truck and camper, as more length was needed to plug the camper connector -- near the front -- to the back bumper of the truck. So they could unplug that one and test the voltage coming directly out of the truck via the cable.) So over 14 volts was coming from the truck, but only 12.3 or 12.4 were making it to the batteries.
The lead guy at the repair shop said that, when I backed up the truck and plugged the camper in, I should have had power to the camper, including enough to run the jacks. He said that's how it is with travel trailers. A normal operation, he explained, would be the ability to run the camper's (or a trailer's) electrical needs directly from the truck, even if the camper batteries are dead.
The shop couldn't figure out the 12.3/12.4 volt vs. 14.x volt discrepancy in the time we had that day before they closed. So I'm taking it back there tomorrow to see if they can figure it out. They encouraged me to run this issue by the good folks here to see if you have any ideas or suggestions.
Any advice, ideas, suggestions, wisdom, thoughts, etc., are VERY much appreciated!
Gerry
In this past year since the theft, I've noticed problems with the battery condition showing on the panel as "Fair" or "Poor," even after replacing the stolen battery. The panel didn't show "Good" for very long. This past November, I replaced the older, non-stolen battery. So now I have two new deep cycle (not dual purpose ****) batteries. However, the battery condition continues to fall short of where it used to.
When I went to the storage yard to put the camper back on the truck, the batteries were dead. I backed up the truck under the cabover of the camper and plugged it in. It did nothing. After leaving the truck running with the cable plugged in awhile, to no avail, I pulled the truck alongside the camper, opened the hood, and used jumper cables right to one of the batteries. That let me get the camper generator to start up. Then, the generator gave me power so I could run the jacks.
I took the rig to a repair shop last week, and they found some interesting things. First, the plug on the roof between the solar panel and the camper was broken, so the solar panel was doing nothing. So they fixed that. That would explain why the batteries were completely dead even with the camper in a yard exposed to all-day sunlight.
However, there were other strange findings at the shop. With the truck running and camper plugged in, the voltage coming into the battery compartment was about 12.3 or 12.4. Then they tested the voltage directly at the cable connecting the truck to the camper, and the voltage was 14.something. (There's an intermediate plug between the truck and camper, as more length was needed to plug the camper connector -- near the front -- to the back bumper of the truck. So they could unplug that one and test the voltage coming directly out of the truck via the cable.) So over 14 volts was coming from the truck, but only 12.3 or 12.4 were making it to the batteries.
The lead guy at the repair shop said that, when I backed up the truck and plugged the camper in, I should have had power to the camper, including enough to run the jacks. He said that's how it is with travel trailers. A normal operation, he explained, would be the ability to run the camper's (or a trailer's) electrical needs directly from the truck, even if the camper batteries are dead.
The shop couldn't figure out the 12.3/12.4 volt vs. 14.x volt discrepancy in the time we had that day before they closed. So I'm taking it back there tomorrow to see if they can figure it out. They encouraged me to run this issue by the good folks here to see if you have any ideas or suggestions.
Any advice, ideas, suggestions, wisdom, thoughts, etc., are VERY much appreciated!
Gerry
