Batteries not Charging

It is not good for your electric brakes to pull the pin as a parking brake, even for that short of a time. Much better to chock (not chalk) the wheels before taking the tongue off of the ball.

augustpilot wrote:
I have I year old Rockwood trailer with 2 batteries. Never a problem before, now since yesterday do not seem to be charging. Red light in trailer indicating amount of charge keeps going down. Any fuse or breakers in line that you know of. It is plugged into truck ok. Thanks for help

Jim

i had same thing happen to me. it was my trailer brakes were on and drained the battery. as soon as i chalked wheels and put the pin back in for electric trailer brakes, all was good again.

Typically, there is a self-resetting circuit breaker or fuse within a few feet of the trailer batteries. It should be on the (+) positive phase cable. It may be in a junction box or attached to the frame/tongue.

Are you trying to charge with the tow vehicle or have you connected to 120V? If the batteries were not disconnected from the usual parasitic loads of the trailer (like the radio, alarms, circuit boards), they may have been totally discharged while left in storage.

Having a hand-held meter to do some diagnosing is the tool to have when working with the 12V system. You could measure the battery voltage and the truck's voltage at the charge pin on the umbilical to verify that charge current is going into the batteries.

augustpilot wrote:
It is plugged into truck ok. Thanks for help

And is the truck engine RUNNING ??

The electrical connector should have a "charge line" to connect truck battery system to the trailer's system for charging......when moving. That pin might not be making good contact. Same for the ground.

When not moving, the trailer should have a manual "disconnect" switch to kill parasitic drains. The batteries won't charge either if that switch is OFF.

EVERY RV OWNER NEEDS A MULTI-METER.

Hello Jim , how were the batteries stored over the winter or were they ? Did you use a maintainer or trickle charger on them throughout the winter ? Just a couple of questions other responders will want to know .