So what did you do to your Truck Camper today?

skipro3 wrote:
I will post up photos soon, but in the meantime, here's an interesting discovery;


After installing solar on my camper a couple weeks ago, I finally figured out why my truck's battery kept going dead every few weeks if I didn't drive it and the camper was on the truck; the 2012 Lance 855S I have has some seriously messed up wiring. I've never seen anything wired so poorly. High school kids could do better. I pulled out my manual to follow the schematic. The wiring was so bad, the emergency disconnect switch wouldn't even work. Well, it would work but not when the Lance was plugged into my truck.




First, the battery positive is supposed to go to a 40amp breaker, then to the emergency disconnect switch. It wasn't even close to that. In fact, the battery went to a distribution post bolted to the floor where 4 other cables spread throughout the camper. The cable for the positive lead coming from the pigtail that plugs into my truck and two wires going to the emergency disconnect switch (supposed to be 3 wires going to the emergency disconnect switch but mine only had 2) were marked with green tape at each end; each had either one, two or three stripes of green tape to identify them. Except each end wasn't marked right. I ohmed out the wires. One wire with one green stripe was marked at the other end with three green stripes. And so on... Nothing was marked, let alone routed right. The fridge, the docking lights and the slider were also not connected right. How could they since they were supposed to route through the emergency switch too. It's amazing to me that this whole wiring mess didn't burn up when it was plugged into my shore power. It certainly killed my truck batteries because the isolator was wired wrong.



I've thought about calling Lance, but they would only tell me to take it to a dealer for a look. No thanks!! If the factory does such crappy wiring, why would I allow some contract help they hired to give it a try? Many of the crimps on the lugs were done poorly. Many of the nuts were loose. The wiring was marked wrong and routed to the wrong places. breakers were missing altogether. Lucky for me, I have the skills to use basic electrical tools and have them; a clamp-on amp meter was the main tool used to discover there was a problem as well as tracing out the current paths. A good volt meter and ohm meter were also instrumental.

I eventually had to disconnect almost everything, ohm out the wires and label them, then connect them all based on the schematic AFTER going to the auto parts and buying a 40 amp breaker that wasn't even in the camper but on the schematic. After several hours, I've got it right.



I recommend to anyone with a 2012 Lance 855S to check their own camper wiring. Start with this; with the camper on the truck and the cable connected between the camper and the truck, switch the emergency disconnect switch to open and see of the lights all go out. Make sure everything turns off. If anything comes on, there's a wiring problem sapping juice from the truck's batteries.