Charging battery in a tent trailer?
Filed in Camping on Jan.30, 2010
I recently bought a used tent trailer and have just finished adding an electrical connector to my truck; there are electrical terminals that are for trailer lighting, electric brakes, backup lights, house battery charging,etc. The terminal for charging the house battery is constantly energized whether the truck is running or not. My question is: If I leave the connector plugged into the truck’s electrical system, and the house battery requires charging , wouldn’t that discharge the truck battery if the engine is not running. The trailer does have an electrical converter , I suspect the wire connects to that before going to the battery. Thank’s for your answers.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:00 AM
Alternator in truck is charging truck and trailer battery, so when truck is shut off, the battery on both do not drain any where. Now the trailer battery will be just like truck battery, turn radio on or leave lights on on truck while not running and it drains battery. Use items in trailer and will drain trailer battery, trailers are built so they do not "back cycle" and drain off or too much off of truck battery if trailer battery goes dead, must waist a lot of electric in trailer for this to happen or have a bad trailer battery.Every time truck starts up again alternator charges both batteries again. HTH!!!
January 30th, 2010 at 5:00 AM
no it won’t kill your truck battery. it doesn’t work like that.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:00 AM
The trailer has it’s own power source, you should have a switch that you can turn off when you don’t need the house power, you can find the power switch on a lot of trailers close to where you enter the trailer, The wiring that’s running to your truck has nothing to do with the power in your trailer, it only works your brakes & trailers running light that you need to drive with.