battery charging?

towpro wrote:

I would not recommend leaving it on a battery charger.

Not a "plain" charger.

But if you also mean a good automatic tender type charger.......you are about the only one in the world.

A small tender often will KEEP a large battery up but it may not bring it back up after even a small discharge.

Old-Biscuit wrote:

When plugged in to shore power the on-board converter should be charging/maintaining camper battery.

Just need to monitor battery water level to get an idea if converter is overcharging.

Well yes but...........
You need a voltmeter to actually SEE if it is charging and how much.

towpro wrote:
...and yes, if your charge wire stays hot all the time, unplug your camper from your truck. no sense is killing the truck batteries with the camper load.

What towpro said--^
But IIRC, isn't Ford the only mfgr that has a key-off charge line? I know Dodge is constant hot. But even if it is key switched, you might want to consider installing a continuous duty solenoid and 10 gage (or 8) charge wire and bypass the factory charge at the 7 pin.

your camper draws power just sitting. I think the CO and Propane detectors draw around 1 amp. in a couple of days this can run your battery down to nothing (its not good to run your battery down that far).

Yes you can turn your camper off, and that should isolate the battery of you have a cutoff switch.

I would not recommend leaving it on a battery charger. Lead Acid batteries I would recommend hooking a 15A or so charger to them every month during winter and charge them up. Most small motorcycle chargers recommend not using them on large batteries (something about 1.5a not enough current to fully charge battery correctly.

when camper is plugged into AC, the camper SHOULD charge the battery if everything is working correct. But in the olden days, those build in chargers were pretty much junk and over charged the batteries. in the modern days they got a lot better (but there still is some china junk out there that might last 2 years at best). we would need to know what kind of charging system your camper has built in.

and yes, if your charge wire stays hot all the time, unplug your camper from your truck. no sense is killing the truck batteries with the camper load.

Those battery 'level' monitors.....well they are just 'bells/whistle' for salesmen to point to for the 'ahh ooh'.

When plugged in to shore power the on-board converter should be charging/maintaining camper battery.
Just need to monitor battery water level to get an idea if converter is overcharging.
Look inside your DC DIST Panel where all the fuses are...probably in same panel as AC Circuit Breakers....and find out WHICH converter you have.
Good converter with 3 stage charging will maintain battery

Unplugging from truck.....
Your F150 'isolates' truck/camper when ignition is OFF so camper can NOT run truck battery down when truck is not being used.