Battery charging

I put a DC ampmeter in the positive lead. With everything shut off, the phantom loads vary between 1/4 and 1/2 amps or 3 to 6 watts.

So, if I unplug my shore power I can expect my battery to go dead in a few days.

If I were to boondock I would have to locate the sneak loads and pull the fuse or find a way to keep the battery charged.

Let us know what type of trailer and what kind of converter you currently have. There is a lot that goes into managing a battery so we need more information.

There are one stage converters (not inverters) that charge batteries at the same rate all the time. When the battery is charged the converter continues to charge which over charges and will destroy a battery in short order.

" I have had issues with dead batteries while boondock camping. I have done current draws and I'm not getting anything but I keep having to replace my batteries and I am using the deep cycle marine units."

You have had to replace batteries in the past. How often does this happen? If you let a battery go dead then it will never be able to hold a full charge. Maintaining the battery requires checking the water levels in the cells and careful charging and attention.

Get a good deep cycle battery that does not have "marine" on it. A marine battery is for boats and needs to be able to crank the engine. A deep cycle does not have the cranking amps requirement. They are different beasts.

Like others advised, we need to know more about your equipment, and about how you use it.

But a couple of thoughts:

Most people kill their batteries by running them too low before charging. You should be charging every day you are camping. Not waiting until the batteries are depleted. Likewise, unless you have power connected in your storage area, you should not leave the batteries connected during storage. You may ruin them in a matter of days from parasitic loads.

Those "Deep Cycle Marine" batteries, probably are not. They are combo starting/house batteries. I can say that with relative confidence, because unless you really search, that is all you will find in the usual places.

Most trailers built in the last 10 years have a decent multi-stage converter, and I don't know what you have, but sitting here I doubt that the problem is with your converter. Much more likely that the problem is in how you use it.

We have no idea what you are doing to care for your battery.

Since we don't know what converter you have nor do we know what portable charger you intend to use, your questions are impossible to answer. Kind of like trying to answer, "How long is a rope?"

For better advice, tell us what you have for a trailer and the model of your converter. If the model of converter is known, we can tell you if it's a good converter or a battery boiler.

Off hand, one of the pitfalls of TT 12 V systems is that they come from the factory with a built-in failure waiting to happen. There are significant parasitic draws that exist (circuit boards, alarms, radio memory, etc) and they are always connected to the battery. If the TT sits in storage without the battery disconnected, the battery is drwan down to a damged state of charge fairly quick (a couple of weeks). The remedy for this situation is to install a battery disconnect switch that interrupts the parasitic draws from the battery. The above is a common cause of repeated battery failures.

Hi,

What converter do you have? How many amp-hours of battery bank do you have? If there are multiple batteries are they wired in a balanced manner?

Using a smart charger may sometimes be better than the stock converter, and at other times, worse. If you have one already, go ahead and try it. There is no need to disconnect the converter from the battery bank. Simply disconnect it from the 120 volt power source.