mattherrington
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Re: Charging While Towing
profdant139 wrote: For someone who says he's electricity dumb, you sound like you are doing quite well! Just FYI, I have a similar trailer (even smaller), and we get along great with a 120 watt portable solar -- plug and play, easy to use, store, and deploy. There are pluses and minuses to rooftop systems (or should I say positives and negatives?). Also, replace those incandescent bulbs with warm white LEDs asap -- big savings on juice! And welcome to the forums! What kind of a trailer do you have, and where are you going next? It's a 2015 Pacific Coachworks Mighty Lite 16BB that somehow didn't sell, got repo'd, something and went to auction where it got bought/flipped to me last summer. Had all the manuals, dealer prep delivery checklists, but couldn't find a scratch on it. I was really just picking around for a 3,000 lb trailer with bunks AND a full and as few moving pieces as possible. Somehow I got it matching my rig! This electricity thing was just my second real mod. First was to upsize from those scary 14" pizza cutters to a D-rated 215/75R15 LT tire, over/under the axle, and mount some Monroe gas shocks under there all with the intent of dragging it down a bunch of off road trails. Next up is some dispersed wilderness near Sequoia NP and down into Kings Canyon NP by the river.569Views0likes0CommentsRe: Charging While Towing
Rookie expectations. Twas my first real outing with this big battery bank Oldwizard's gadget is cool though. Who knew I was searching for the Holy Grail? Worked fine when I was using the simple battery gauge and just charging that Chinese marine battery on the tongue! Appreciate the help everyone.796Views0likes0CommentsRe: Charging While Towing
I get it now. I can be at 13.4V all day in the truck and it's not going to dent my 4 GC2 US Battery bank. Bulk and absorption charge for these batteries is spec'd at 14.7V to final 97% of capacity and then drops to 13.0 for the float. I'm really sending a trickle back there to batteries down 30-40% hence net zero on the road. That explains the amp drop too. I am sending amps back there but not with enough voltage to overcome battery resistance. So it pushes in 5A for but only for one minute(ish) and then normalizes because of the lack of voltage. I'm a off-roader so I'm brakes, suspension, load, tranny temp, gear oil (reasonably) smart but electricity dumb. Bottom line today is that I'll have to A. keep hauling the generator just in case or B.) mate the setup with a 3-4 stage solar charger that gets to 15V. Thanks all.306Views0likes0CommentsRe: Charging While Towing
Wire size? Pretty light (maybe 14g). Seems super light in retrospect but that was the same gauge as the make-a-tap fuse connector thingy. Tow vehicle had a 4-pin so I had to wire in 7-pin for the trailer brake controller and to get power back there. Looking at a 7-pin diagram again you're right those lights come through what were those original four pins. It's the amp drop thing that gets me and I can't be back there to see it. I just presumed watching at startup it's at 2000 RPM I get the alternator spinning and at idle I get back down to the minimal feed. Still means I'd be great running in 4th gear all day. Maybe I get the bluetooth dongle for the BVM so I can see it on the road.306Views0likes0CommentsCharging While Towing
Newbie to the forum here. Looked around a bit and didn't see anything specific so worth a fresh post. We just took our first long trip in my 16ft TT after I installed a new (4)6-volt 460AH system in lieu of the single group 27 marine battery. Installed a Victron 700-BVM which was/is the coolest gadget. Love the AH consumed/charged function as that and voltage were my real measurements of state of charge. Didn't quite like the percentage used so that'll take a little programming change (hopefully). Overall on the six night trip we used 170AH with the kids watching DVDs every night, ending voltage when we got home was around 12.25V. Pretty respectable. Just the smoke detector, carbon monoxide, propane detector, propane fridge controls, and a USB that stays hot draws about .85A an hour and if we were out for the day I'd just shut it down. To my surprise though I didn't get the charge I thought I would when we were out on the road. We relocated twice 2-3 hours each and drove home 8 hours yesterday and the change in AH and voltage was seemingly negligible each time. I've got a 30A lead wired from a empty fuse slot to the 7-pin connector. My big battery system install is right to the original connection points on the TT to keep things simple. When I start the truck I can see the Amps inbound to the trailer peak at about 5A but then really quickly it dropped down to 1/0/-.85. The AH meter moves backwards and forwards so I recorded a little dent in AH used right at startup but that was it. My simple math said even at 5A inbound I'd see a real dent in total AH consumed on our crazy long drive home and it was at 175AH when we left and 171AH when we got home. Every time it basically felt like it was a wash and I thought I'd see a 30-40AH pickup after a whole day on the road. Truck voltage the whole ride was considerably above (runs around 13.4 to 13.6 on the move) the trailer batteries in the mid/low 12's. Only thing I can come up with is that I run full lights on (lights on for safety!) all the time and the running/marker/brake lights on the trailer are still incandescent and that's consuming most of that trailer feed? Seems like I'm missing something. Any insight from you experienced folk would be appreciated.5.6KViews0likes38Comments
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