wire charge line

[wheelonl]

I have a question. I recently bought a trailer and had my pickup wired for the 7 way RV plug but at the time did not have the extra 100 bucks to wire the charge line (I did the marking/stop/turn and brakes). How difficult is this to do? I am working on an older Ford F250 (88) that has everything done except the charge line for the trailer. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks,
Larry

[SkippysPad]

tchil wrote:
Just remember if you wire it directly to the battery then you could run the truck battery down with the trailer batteries if you leave the trailer connected while parked or boondocking for example. That is one of the reasons the newer truck use a relay to break the connection when the truck is not running.

The "Old School" way of doing this was to put a starter relay at the battery. Hook the side terminal (signal line) to a line powered when the ignition is on. No more dead TV battery.

[tchil]

Just remember if you wire it directly to the battery then you could run the truck battery down with the trailer batteries if you leave the trailer connected while parked or boondocking for example. That is one of the reasons the newer truck use a relay to break the connection when the truck is not running.

[RoyB]

My 7-way plug uses the standard 12VDC connection wired into the truck side of things.

much like this diagram from etrailer.


In my case however the 12VDC that is available on blade 4 of the truck connector is controlled by a RELAY and a FUSE located in the truck fuse panel and is only ON when the truck IGNITION KEY is turned on.

You may run into this on your setup????

Like said in the previous thread my 12VDC coming from the truck connector routes along with all of the 7-wires and terminates in an electrical junction box just inside my trailer frame. Here the 12VDC lead is routed through a in-line fuse and is connected diretly to the positive trailer battery terminal. This provides "TRAILER TOW CHARGE" as it is identified in my Ford F150 truck manual to the connected trailer setup.

Being fed with smaller wire size cables and a long distance from the the truck alternator I only consider this TRAILER TOW CHARGE more of long term trickle charge when in transport mode.

Roy Ken

[DougE]

For simplicity and ease of installation, I would suggest 10 ga wire with a spade tongue crimp connector at the trailer plug and a 30 amp inline fuse. Replace the positive terminal on the battery with a side post adapter to use a ring terminal crimp connector at that point.

[bid_time]

Run a wire from the RV plug to the battery and put a fuse in the line. Proper size wire, proper size fuse and that's it; done.