Junior Member
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 23
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Today, I learned a valuable lesson about the battery. Long story...
** Skip to bottom for the take home message **
Just recently took a 3 night camping trip, and in preparation, brought the battery from home (had been on the battery tender in my garage) and re-connected it to the trailer. No power! I checked my work, and realized that I had connected the posts backwards. The dreaded REVERSE POLARITY!
I quickly disconnected, reconnected it properly and noted the power was on. Battery was full. I then brought the trailer home from my storage place, and parked it in my driveway. Over the next day/night, we prepped the trailer, cooled the fridge, and packed stuff for our trip, all while connected to a 15amp plug coming from my garage. All seemed to be going well.
On the day of the trip, we got everything ready to take off for our fun-filled trip, and lo and behold, I found that the radio was not lit. The display was dead. I pulled the radio, found a blown fuse, and ran out quickly, found a 10 amp fuse, and replaced it. Phew! the radio sprung back to life again. Easy fix, I thought. We then got ready to go, I checked the battery meter, and found that the battery was completely dead! What the! It was plugged into shore power all night and day, couldn't possibly be dead. I replaced it with a spare 12V, which was fully charged, and then everything seemed to be working well. We embarked on our trip, finally, but by this time, we were 2 hours late leaving. No worries. No clocks needed when you're camping...
We arrived, set up quickly, and enjoyed the evening. The lights worked well, and the fridge/microwave seemed to be working fine, but of course, we were hooked up to a 30A plug, so why wouldn't they??
Well, next morning, I woke up early. Turned on a light, and found that the lights were mysteriously dim. Turning on other lights seemed to make them all the more dim. I started to wonder, so I checked the battery meter, and found that the other battery was dead! After some quick research on this forum (Thanks FRF!), I realized that I needed to check more fuses. The Reverse Polarity Fuses on the main panel were blown. 40A fuses! Nope, didn't have spares. Ran out to a store, replaced the fuses, and she came back to life, with the meter finally showing that the battery was charging. I checked all other fuses and found them all intact, so I think this is the end of the problem. Turns out, if the RP fuses blow, the converter cannot convert shore line power to 12V and the trailer lives completely off of the battery. Once the battery goes, so does the rest of the trailer. Replacing the fuses "reconnects" the converter to the main electrical and 12V system, so that everything works. Rest of trip was uneventful, and we logged another 3 nights of camping in our awesome trailer. As you can guess, now I have 5 more 40 fuses, and an array of replacement fuses in my camper toolbox!
** Take Home Message**
Do not EVER connect the battery in reverse polarity. If you do, you can blow the RP fuses. Make sure you have spare 40A fuses (need at least 2 spares) on hand!
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2015.5 FE 282 BHDSLE
2011 GMC Yukon XL Denali
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