Charging

[ericsjr843]

1. Hey guys does ur rig charge the house batteries while plugged into shore power? If not Wht are you using to keep a charge on house batteries?

2. Does your 7 pin harness charge house batteries while traveling?

[coney]

Originally Posted by ericsjr843

1. Hey guys does ur rig charge the house batteries while plugged into shore power? If not Wht are you using to keep a charge on house batteries?

2. Does your 7 pin harness charge house batteries while traveling?

1. yes batteries do charge when hooked to shore power
2 yes batteries will charge from you alternator while traveling, but will charge better when hooked to shore power

[tomkatb]

When hooked to shore power most Converters charge the house battery at a high rate. Mine is 60 amps dc amps per hour.

Most tv’s provide a minimal charge to the battery. My 200 amp battery in the truck charges at 12.9 volts. Engineers would say not “diddly squat”. A few amps per hour. Many days for a full recharge.

My Honda 2200 is set up to provide about 10 amps dc charging with an optional cord. So the converter is the best choice. Just plug the Honda into the shore power.

Modern rv’s use a ton of power, making recharging a concern. Most everyone needs a battery monitor.

The DW discovered Harvest Hosts. Now we do, boondock. Before we did not.

[CHICKDOE]

i'm assuming you are asking just for general info rather than because you are having a problem.

your trailer will have a converter installed in it. the converter may be a stand alone unit, built into the power distribution center, or an integrated converter / inverter combination depending on your specific make / model of trailer. the purpose of the converter is to take 120 volts ac power and convert it to 12 volt dc power to run 12 volt devices and to recharge your batteries. so yes the batteries should recharge when hooked up to shore power, or to a generator that the shore power cord is plugged into. there are a couple of issues that arise at times to prevent the batteries from being recharged. one is that the battery disconnect switch (if you have one) must be set to have the batteries online so they can accept the recharge from the converter. the other is that there is a small circuit breaker near the batteries that may trip and prevent them from being recharged. to verify that they are being recharged from shore power get a cheap multimeter and take a dc voltage reading at the battery terminals. it should be around 13.2 volts or higher. if you get this the batteries are being recharged.

as far as recharging from the 7-pin cable while towing that is a much lower charge level. don't expect to recharge depleted batteries using the 7-pin cable while towing for a day. also, different makes of two vehicles are configured with this charge line either enabled or disabled. some re

[CHICKDOE]

sorry hit the wrong key.

some tow vehicles require a fuse to be installed in the tow vehicle to activate the 7-pin charge line. again use a meter to test the voltage at the battery terminals when connected and disconnected to the tow vehicle to verify that the batteries are receiving a charge via the 7-pin cable.

since you are new and are asking these questions there is one other topic that you should know about batteries. when you put the trailer into storage you should take action to prevent the batteries from being discharged. one method is to connect to a shore power source. the other is to remove all loads from the batteries as fully charged batteries will last for months if all loads are removed. using the factory installed battery disconnect switch is not guaranteed to remove all loads from the batteries. again this will depend on how your trailer is wired.

hope this helps. go out and enjoy!