Uh-oh, breakaway cable pulled

I walked into garage this morning and noticed that the the breakaway cable pin had been pulled out of the housing. I plugged it back in immediately but it may have been out for as much as 3 days and must have certainly been out overnight. The TM was on shore power throughout. My only theory as to what could have happened to pull out the cable was it got inadvertently pulled when my wife and I were "swinging" the hitch for the first time. Either that, or one of my kids found something to pull on.

I am curious though what I need to look for in terms of potential damage. I could not check things out for another 6 hours this morning as I had to leave house. When I came home, I pulled TM out and opened her up. The systems monitor reported a fully charged battery. I was surprised because I would have thought that the current draw of the emergency brakes might exceed the ability of the converter to keep the battery charged. Anyway, I thought I would mention this story on the board to see what the experienced members might think on the subject.

My questions are as follows:

1. Should I assume that my batteries were drained to damaging levels?

2. If so, how could they have been charged to full in only about 6 hours?

3. Could the brakes themselves have been damaged by being applied for so long?

4. If I did in fact do some serious damage to my batteries, would I set the record by a newbie for earliest battery destruction? I haven't had the trailer even 3 weeks yet!

[ZekenSpider]

My guess is (since you were on shore power) the converter supplied power to the brakes and the battery(s) on a continual basis and therefore did virtually no damage to anything except maybe the brake magnets. The brakes typically pull no more than 3 amps per brake which equates to 3 x 12 = 36 watts per side. That may not be enough heat to do any damage (imagine a 35 watt light bulb sitting inside each drum). The converter could easily supply the 6 amps needed. Possibly the magnets have been overheated. I would call Dexter Axle and ask the question. I'll bet it"s happened before.

Maybe no damage at all, but might be wise to inspect the brakes.

Thanks for the response. Perhaps I overreacted a bit but I am new to the world of campers. I went camping last weekend and the guy at the camper next door was telling me how he ran his trailer battery down by using the breakaway cable as a parking brake shortly after he bought his trailer.

[Wavery]

I doubt it hurt the electro-magnets in the brakes. Easy to check. Just pull the pin and see if they work. Either they hold or they don't.

As for the batteries, if they took a charge and held it for 24 hours, they're fine. The problem comes when you discharge the battery and let it sit for a long time without recharging. They seldom recover from that because the electrolyte balance gets messed up.

Thanks for the response, harveyrv. We might see you around Pt. Mugu this fall. We saw your pix of that location and have put it on our soon-to-do list. We are doing several SB and SLO county campsites first as part of our burn-in and learnin' tour. But I am sure that it won't be long until we venture farther southward.

[kempert]

I forgot to unhook the cable when I arrived in Co in early April. Then I forgot to put the plug back in until I hooked the TM back up to head home in mid-July. The TM was on shore power the whole time. I had no problems with anything as a result.