Starcraft wiring

Streetmedic63 wrote:
The battery being fried as in overheated and boiled over. Brand new battery less than 2 months old. Installed a new battery and after three days camping on it and driving back home it did not have enough of a charge to raise the camper when I got home being disconnected from car. Plugged camper back into car and tried to raise the camper with battery disconnected and it would not raise.

So the first battery is the one that boiled over. That means your converter is shot. At home if you plug back in, the converter will wreck the new battery too.

Second battery is run down from camping and just needs recharging. Use some other charger for that until you get a new converter.

Looks like you need more batteries for a weekend camping trip to get by, or reduce your battery use while camping. With the weight limits etc, one way is to carry an extra battery in the tow vehicle and put it on the ground beside the trailer battery when you get there, paralleling them with a set of jumper cables.

One of those small solar sets won't really do much for you and are way over-priced usually, so it is better to put your money into more batteries if you can carry them along somehow.

Streetmedic63 wrote:
I left the camper plugged in overnight and my battery got fried. Is this typical?

No, this is not typical. How long have you owned the trailer? Has it always acted this way? The power converter/chargers in RVs are notoriously bad chargers. Most of them will overcharge/boil off electrolyte from batteries. Usually this happens over weeks/months, not one or two nights. It should not be a problem to use them during normal camping, but I would use an "intelligent" battery maintainer for storage.

Streetmedic63 wrote:
I also tried raising the top with the electric winch with the battery disconnected but plugged into my car and could not supply any power to the camper with the battery disconnected. Is this typical?

This is likely normal. Depending on your tow vehicle and your trailer wiring, you may or may not even have a charge line from the tow vehicle. Even if you do, it is usually fairly limited in the current it can provide. I would not expect it to be able to operate the electric jack.


You may have multiple problems. You could have left something on in the RV which drained the batteries. If your tow vehicle is not charging the batteries or not providing enough charge to overcome whatever loads are left on, you could drain the batteries pretty quickly. Especially if they aren't well maintained.

Some older converter/chargers have adjustments to reduce the charge rate. However, many of the older ones and most newer ones don't. I'd recommend having the converter charger checked out and check for how much current is being drawn from the batteries when they're not being charged. If have a good multi-meter and are comfortable using it, you can do this yourself. If not, have an RV shop check it.

The battery being fried as in overheated and boiled over. Brand new battery less than 2 months old. Installed a new battery and after three days camping on it and driving back home it did not have enough of a charge to raise the camper when I got home being disconnected from car. Plugged camper back into car and tried to raise the camper with battery disconnected and it would not raise.

That 7 pin TT plug, is going to have low voltage when it comes to charging
Also the wiring is too small to supply full battery charge or TT Jack surge amps

How did you plug into the car with the battery disconnected? If you connected directly to the battery of the car like you would if it was the trailer battery, then it should have worked.

By "fried", so you mean it boiled dry and melted? Or is now just dead?

What do you mean exactly by "fried"?

Yes, the power from the car would go via the connected battery.