Forum Discussion

jtmc60's avatar
jtmc60
Explorer
May 13, 2014

power to camper

Can I operate levelers with only tow vehicle power. No batteries in camper. Not connected to shore power.
  • jtmc60, do you realize that not one of us has any idea what you have? Kind of hard to give advice without any info to work from.
  • Hoping you didn't tow the camper with no battery in it as that is against the Law. The trailer battery powers the brakes if there is a "break-away."

    Your 7-pin pos goes on the pos battery post and the neg goes to the kingpin frame for the "ground" With no battery you might not have a positive "path" to the various trailer 12v items unless you use vice-grip pliers to connect the several red wires that normally go onto the battery pos post and get their path by being connected there.
  • I assume that you are talking about getting the 12v from the seven pin connector on the tow vehicle. If that is the case and you can't get enough power, simply reverse the vehicle and run jumper cables directly from the tow vehicle battery to the battery leads in the RV. Just be sure to observe polarity.
  • Ron3rd's avatar
    Ron3rd
    Explorer III
    It would probably pop the circuit breaker on the slide due to low current available from the tow vehicle. I wouldn't try it.
  • I sure wouldn't guess at it. I would test with a volt meter under load. One time I had to use 2 Farad capacitors on a similar setup 2 Farad capacitors are used in car audio stereo. A pair of them ganged, made all the difference in the world.
  • Depends what you have? But yes Most of them that are plugged in and have 12 volts to the camper should work.

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