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Originally Posted by paul street
RockyMtnRay......
When you say .....
"thence through a dedicated very heavy duty connector to more heavy duty wire that connects directly to the trailer's house battery."
.....what kind of connector are we talking about. I know very little about this subject and need all the help I can get. Are we talking about something similiar to the presently existing Bargman connector from the tm to the tv?
I like your suggestion of being direct connected to the tv battery in order to re-charge the house battery while driving; and will like to pursue it more; of course along with getting a desulfator and isolator also.
Paul
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Well, first of all, since I have the distinct impression that you've not yet gotten much if any actual experience with the electrical characteristics of your specific Tow Vehicle (TV) and specific TrailManor, I would suggest you do
nothing to the recharging system for the trailer until you do. Yes, as Bill noted previously, he's experienced a fairly large voltage drop in the recharging
wire to his 2720SL's battery. I, OTOH, have experienced only a fairly small voltage drop (around .2V) between the voltage at my TV's alternator and the voltage at my TM's battery when it's recharging a fairly depleted battery. Yes, .2V is a fairly significant difference when you're talking maximum charge state but it's not that huge if the charge state of the battery is still low...and as the battery charge state rises, its voltage rises causing the charging current to decrease, which in turn causes the voltage drop over the charge
wire from the TV to also decrease. The bottom line is a less-than-optimum charge circuit will recharge the TM's battery...if the TM refrigerator is NOT running on DC...it will just take longer to do it.
The important qualifier is whether or not the the refrigerator is running on DC. Turn off the refrigerator and
nearly all charge circuits (even those with high resistance) will recharge the TM's house battery while driving. Run the refrigerator on DC and some TV/TM combinations will fully recharge the TM battery, others will
almost achieve/hold a full charge on the TM battery, and others will allow the TM battery to discharge/not recharge at all. You really should determine where your specific TV/TM fits on this spectrum of capability before you start doing a lot of rewiring.
After several towing trips, you may determine you really do NOT need to improve your TV/TM's recharging capability. But if you do, before you get toooooo carried away with special connectors going back to the trailer (the more wires and connectors, the more likely you'll trip over something or forget to hook something up), you can do something you'll need to anyway...install heavier duty wiring (~8 to 10 gauge) directly from the TV battery (with or without an isolator) to the rear of the TV and from the TM's hitch area back to the battery compartment on your 2720SL. To be honest, I'd do the latter first as I suspect there's more resistance in the trailer's wiring and internal connections than in most TV's factory wiring harness. The Bargman connector actually is pretty well designed and is probably about as good a connector as you will get anyway. That assumes, of course, that the terminals on the TV's Bargman connector were properly connected to the wiring...quite often they're not if the TV end is an after-market add-on.
As for an isolator, that, IMO, is a fairly optional piece of equipment and you may not even need it. When I wired my previous TV (a Jeep Cherokee) for towing (it did not have the factory towing package), I did
not install an isolator and simply ran a 10 gauge
wire straight from the the Jeep's battery back to the Bargman connector with only a 30 amp circuit breaker for protection. In two years of towing, I never even came close to discharging the Jeep's battery. However, once I got on the road with the TM hooked up, I also never stopped longer than about 20 minutes enroute so there was never enough time for any significant discharge to happen. Furthermore, both the Jeep and TM batteries were very healthy and both had plenty of capacity to power the TM's refrigerator for several hours at its normal 11 amp usage rate. I'm sure I would have had a different story to tell if I had stopped enroute for several hours...or if either battery was very marginal. My current TV (Toyota Tundra) does have an isolator...my thought is it's a nice but unneeded feature given my traveling profile.
The bottom line is if you are likely to make long (over an hour's duration) enroute stops...and your TM's refrigerator is running on DC, then an isolator is a reasonable way of insuring you will be able to restart the TV. But isolator or not, the constant drain from the TM's refrigerator (if it is running on DC) will steadily discharge your TM's house battery anyway. If your trip does call for a multi-hour enroute stop, the smart thing to do is to simply open the TM and switch the refrigerator off DC...either completely off or to propane for the duration of the stop. Then when you're ready to resume your trip, re-open the TM and put the refrigerator back on DC again. Once cooled down, the refrigerator will...even when off...hold food cold enough to prevent bacterial growth for several hours. Leaving it off for several hours, however, may allow some frozen food to at least partially thaw or melt. So it all depends on your traveling style...and whether or not you like to tinker with things even if you don't need to. Me...I fix what really needs to be fixed, follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principal, and believe in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" concept.
As for a desulfator/charger, I've had excellent experience with
this BatteryMINDer. When in storage it acts as both a float charger
and a desulfator. I store my TM in my garage and simply leave it hooked to this unit constantly between trips. Although the maximum 1 amp charging rate isn't huge, it will bring a half-discharged house battery back to full charge over the course of about 72 hours. It's float charge characteristics are quite good...even after 6 months of winter storage, I find I lose only a small amount of water from the cells yet the battery stays fully charged. Well worth the moderately high cost.
Huh?
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