On the road with 12v charging problem

You need a dedicated charge wire of at least 10 guage, and a matching ground wire if you want your truck to charge your camper batteries. Direct from the truck battery to the camper battery, with only a switch or solenoid, and a very heavey duty connector plug. The reason is that your trucks alternator senses the battery's state of charge by measuring its voltage, then adjusts its output accordingly. It needs to see all of your batteries as one. The heavey wire accomplishes that. If there is any resistance in the connection between the truck and camper batteries, the alternator will only sense the charge level of the truck battery, and will not put out enough voltage to recharge the camper batteries as you drive.


I hope this helps, good luck, Joel

Don't expect amazing charge ability from your 7 pin, the wire size to your RV is just too small. I have the same problem, I barely charge much at all even with a HP Alternator. It is what it is.

My Bigfoot camper had a circuit breaker after the truck charge wire entered the camper from the Bargeman plug, but before wire went to the power converter...mine was under setteee seat..check around and you may find the same.....

Thanks everyone for the help. I have been in the mountains and just got into cell service and read your replies. I'm going to start by checking voltage with a meter as opposed to the test light. Off to a hardware store.

More to follow.

Maybe we're not reading you right. When you say you verified power downstream of the plug, do you mean in the camper? I'm not clear whether you've verified you have power in the wire coming from the truck.
The other thing that plays into troubleshooting this, did it work before and quit working, or is this a new setup that hasn't been sorted out yet?

12 volt from the truck should go through a fuse or circuit breaker then through a battery separator. The battery separator may have a fuse inside.

Jeff

Agree with Mark. A voltmeter will also let you find the bad contact by measuring the voltage across the contact if there is a load.

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be the position of the connector was making bad contact. Ended up using a bungie cord to hold the cable opposite it's natural lay and back to pushing expected current.

I had a similar problem. You say you used a test light. You need to measure the actual voltage. In my case, there was a drop of about 2 volts caused by the deteriorated solenoid contacts feeding the charge line to the camper. There was voltage but it was too low to charge camper batteries. Replacing the solenoid fixed it. There could also be a voltage drop from any poor connections between the truck and camper. Bottom line is you have to MEASURE the voltage. Should be at least 13.5 or more volts getting to the batteries. Hope this helps. -Mark.

Crazy Creek wrote:
Arctic Fox TC

I have 12v to the camper from the trucks charging system but the TC's batteries are not getting charged. TC batteries charge with either shore power or generator but not with the vehicle charging system.

I have verified that I do have power (using test light) to the plug mounted on the camper. I even removed the plug and verified power slightly downstream of the plug.
Then problem is with camper charge wire to battery

Any thoughts?

Where does the power wire go after it enters the camper?


If I don't respond it's not because I'm ungrateful it's more likely that I have no cell service.

Thanks

Mike

My old camper.......
from backside of camper plug----Wiring went to a terminal block that had individual fuses for each circuit.....running lights/turn signals/brake lights/battery

Battery charge wire then went directly to POS battery post

(Gen or shore power go thru converter charger)

The easy way to tell is to use a mulitmeter across the trailer battery terminals with no shore power or generator connected. You will read 12.6-7VDC if the trailer battery is fully charged. Then with the truck 7-way connector plugged in and the truck motor running you should see the DC VOLTAHE across the trailer battery terminals jump up to around 14VDC. This will tell if the truck is charging your trailer battery.

On my trailer setup my truck with the iginition key has to be turned on and the truck motor running of course. MY 2010 F150 Truch has a relay and a fuse labeled tow charge or something to that effect that I found in the glove box in an unmarked plastic bag and had to install these two items in the Truck fuse panel to get mine to work. The truck manual identifed these two location as tow charger I think it was... The FUSE and RELAY allows the TRAILER TOW CHARGE to be controlled by the truck ignition key on my truck.

Roy Ken