Charging the batteries with converter?

[tentcamper]

I disconnect the positive terminal, or should I say, switch it off. I have 3 different wires going to the pos terminal (elec jack, breakaway brake, and converter). I only switch off the converter wire, which powers all the camper stuff that comes off the 12v fuses.

My jack and the breakaway still work when the switched off.

[Bill]

TentCamper -

That's a nice approach. I like it a lot. I also have a shutoff switch, but it is an all-or-nothing affair. Your way - separating the circuits - is much better, and I will change mine to be like yours, so the cutoff switch interrupts only the connection to the converter. Since I use the Bargman connector for my Battery Tender charge maintainer, as RottieMom described above, I want that to continue.

Are each of your three connections independently fused?

Bill

[tentcamper]

I have 3 wires going to the pos battery terminal with 2 wires protected. A CB for the jack and a blade fuse for the wire going to switch that go's to converter, but the breakaway wire is not protected.

I'm more like the first jpeg (original). But the breakaway is run by itself to the battery. I ran the pos side of the breakaway directly to the battery.

I found the wire nuts for the breakaway about 2 feet under the camper along the frame. I terminated the positive source wire with electrical tape. I then rerouted the positive wire to the breakaway to the battery. Both wires from the brakeaway are black. So you need to find the wire that has 12v on it. The other black wire runs to the brakes, you want to leave it as you found it. You need to only terminate the 12v source and re-route the pos wire from the breakaway switch to the battery. Add a fuse or no fuse and a terminal. Then test it by pulling lanyard with a wheel jacked up and make sure the brake engages.

The breakaway switch wire I opted for no fuse, but if you think you want a fuse add one.

There seems to be two school of thoughts by the manufactures. To fuse or not to fuse the breakaway. I had campers with it fuse and without it fused. I'm not one to check the fuse and would never know if it's bad until it did not work running free behind the TV. I would rather have the wire insulation melt when the trailer is running around free, than protect it with a fuse.

The other nice thing I can do with the switch and wires configured this way; If I want to preserve my battery charge of maybe 13.x v when traveling. I just switch it off and run the fridge and fan only off the TV. Or, if I have a low charge, I turn on the switch and charge up the battery to maybe 12.6 to 12.7v, which is all I think my automotive charging system will do.

[flipflop]

I think a 2011 will have the WFCO WF8955A 3-stage converter in it (there's a label on it). I did some research about the 8955 and the specs are Stage 1 = 14.4vdc, Stage 2 = 13.6vdc, Stage 3 = 13.2vdc. http://wfcoelectronics.com/product/wf-8955-55-amp/

The WFCO 3-stage seems to still be the industry standard, but it does differ from a Battery Tender device which is 4-stage. The 4th stage is every 21 hours it jumps from the Stage 3 voltage to 14.4vdc for 15 minutes to prevent battery plate sulfation.

You could replace the OEM 3-stage with a Parallax 4-stage
http://www.bestconverter.com/Boondoc...955_c_196.html

For solar I'm finding the 85W factory does a decent job even in intermittent sun to keep the DC systems going. Flat panel on streetside rear roof. The pic is right now in full sun most of the day.

It was up to 13.2v earlier, in weak/intermittent sun it was holding at 12.2 or so.

[inghamm]

Originally Posted by tentcamper

I have 3 wires going to the pos battery terminal with 2 wires protected. A CB for the jack and a blade fuse for the wire going to switch that go's to converter, but the breakaway wire is not protected.

I'm more like the first jpeg (original). But the breakaway is run by itself to the battery. I ran the pos side of the breakaway directly to the battery.

I found the wire nuts for the breakaway about 2 feet under the camper along the frame. I terminated the positive source wire with electrical tape. I then rerouted the positive wire to the breakaway to the battery. Both wires from the brakeaway are black. So you need to find the wire that has 12v on it. The other black wire runs to the brakes, you want to leave it as you found it. You need to only terminate the 12v source and re-route the pos wire from the breakaway switch to the battery. Add a fuse or no fuse and a terminal. Then test it by pulling lanyard with a wheel jacked up and make sure the brake engages.

The breakaway switch wire I opted for no fuse, but if you think you want a fuse add one.

There seems to be two school of thoughts by the manufactures. To fuse or not to fuse the breakaway. I had campers with it fuse and without it fused. I'm not one to check the fuse and would never know if it's bad until it did not work running free behind the TV. I would rather have the wire insulation melt when the trailer is running around free, than protect it with a fuse.

The other nice thing I can do with the switch and wires configured this way; If I want to preserve my battery charge of maybe 13.x v when traveling. I just switch it off and run the fridge and fan only off the TV. Or, if I have a low charge, I turn on the switch and charge up the battery to maybe 12.6 to 12.7v, which is all I think my automotive charging system will do.

This is exactly what I want to do. (preserve my battery charge) An earlier post (I'm guessing yours) about the fully charged TM battery sending power to the TV sparked my attention. I couldn't find it again, but I kept thinking about it. I would love it if you would write more about this. I'm not sure I totally understand.I don't have a powered jack, but I think I only have one wire coming off the battery. I'll have to check. Maybe a new thread?

[TMfor4ofus]

Originally Posted by tentcamper

I disconnect the positive terminal, or should I say, switch it off. I have 3 different wires going to the pos terminal (elec jack, breakaway brake, and converter). I only switch off the converter wire, which powers all the camper stuff that comes off the 12v fuses.

My jack and the breakaway still work when the switched off.

Originally Posted by flipflop

I think a 2011 will have the WFCO WF8955A 3-stage converter in it (there's a label on it). I did some research about the 8955 and the specs are Stage 1 = 14.4vdc, Stage 2 = 13.6vdc, Stage 3 = 13.2vdc. http://wfcoelectronics.com/product/wf-8955-55-amp/

The WFCO 3-stage seems to still be the industry standard, but it does differ from a Battery Tender device which is 4-stage. The 4th stage is every 21 hours it jumps from the Stage 3 voltage to 14.4vdc for 15 minutes to prevent battery plate sulfation.

You could replace the OEM 3-stage with a Parallax 4-stage
http://www.bestconverter.com/Boondoc...955_c_196.html

For solar I'm finding the 85W factory does a decent job even in intermittent sun to keep the DC systems going. Flat panel on streetside rear roof. The pic is right now in full sun most of the day.

It was up to 13.2v earlier, in weak/intermittent sun it was holding at 12.2 or so.

Thanks to all who posted. We just came back from a two day (Elec Hookup) outing and the batteries are showing a full charge so I disconnected the Neg side since it had only two connections. It cuts it off for sure. Though I like the idea of just disconnecting on the converter wire so next time I will do that. I'll monitor the charge as is and just plug it in when it drops below 12.5 or so or connect to my awesome 30w of solar and see how that goes? In full sun it shows up to 13.4V when charging the batteries. I'm also glad to hear the converter seems like a good charger since its easy to just run a cord into the garage overnight. Since I have 4.4kw of solar on the roof using some of it to power the TM is no problem. Thanks Again

[tentcamper]

It's fairly simple if your battery is upfront and you don't have a factory installed power jack. My jack I added myself and wired it directly to the battery. My battery is upfront.

If you have a power jack and it's not wired directly to the battery, and/or you have a battery in the rear, you will need to figure out how to power your breakaway switch and power jack directly from the battery.

Background. For all TMs it looks as if somewhere between the fuse at the battery and converter, maybe at the converter, 4 circuits come together on a common bus: 1) the 12V fuse panel of the converter, 2) the breakaway brake switch, 3) the 12V battery charge wire coming from the 7-pin connector to the TV, and 4) the breakaway brake switch. Reference Bill picture labeled "ORIGINAL" which is about 4 post before this post.

So what this common bus does is supply 12V from 3 sources. The battery, the converter, and the 12V charge line from the TV via the 7pin connector. All you need is power from any of these 3 sources to provide power to the common bus and you have power to everything powered by 12v in the camper working.

The breakaway brake switch is also powered from the common bus. You need it to operate and apply brakes when the trailer breaks free of the TV. At that time the only 12V source on the camper to power the breakaway switch, is the 12V battery.

The reason I wired the breakaway brake switch directly to the battery is so I can have a switch between the battery and the common bus. With the switch off, not a thing inside the camper including the fridge has power from the battery, including the breakaway brake switch. But the breakaway brake switch has power if it is wired directly to the battery. But with the switch off when connected to the TV, the 12V charge wire from the 7 pin connector powers the common bus and the 12V fuses in the converter has 12V. This is how I isolate the battery from the fridge and run the fridge only from the TV. But if I ran the battery low and want to charge it up to maybe 12.6 volts while on the road, I turn on the switch and charge up from the TV

What I did:

1st added a switch to the wire going to the battery as a way not to have to disconnect the wire from the battery. I added it along the frame rail where the wire ran. It was a standard house outdoor junction box with a standard household switch and a weatherproof cover. I had lots of extra wire on that lead. I was able to cut the existing wire leaving the the fuse intact and long enough to go into the junction box and to the switch. I left plenty of wire on both ends (converter and battery).

I drilled 2 holes on the back of the junction box so I could sheet metal screw it to the frame. I also drilled a weep hole in the lowest side of the box to allow any water that got into the box to weep out. I ran both end of the wire I cut through one hole in the box and installed a standard water proof clamp.

This allowed me to switch off the battery and not have the circuits inside the camper drain the battery. But until I ran the breakaway brake switch directly to the battery, I had to turn the switch on to be safe on the road. I ran it like this for 2 years. It was a quick way to disconnect the battery.

2nd, I got to thinking about how to isolate the the battery and run the fridge off the TV 12v only. With the switch I added off, the fridge and fridge fan did well running only off the the TV when connected. But I had to turn the switch on to have the breakaway switch operational for safety.

What I found was TM uses the standard breakaway switch with 2 - 5' black leads. They run those leads back along the inside of the street frame rail. They then wire nut a wire onto one those wires and run it to the common bus and the other wire to the brake wire. The 5' wire was long enough to be pulled back and run to the battery with plenty to spare. It ended up being about 3 feet back from the front of the box.

The trick was to figure which wire was which, because they were not color coded. With the battery wire disconnected (switch off), I separated one wire and bent them is such a manner so they would not touch the frame. Then using my volt meter with the negative lead connected to the battery neg post, I checked for voltage on the wire coming from the back of the camper. I had 12V on the wire. If there was not 12V, I would have disconnected the positive battery (switch it off) and reconnect the wire nut. I would have repeated the steps on the second wire.

Once I found the 12V wire, I disconnected the positive battery wire (switch it off). I went back and under the camper and cut off the bare end of the 12V source wire and taped it up. I pulled the front side of the free breakaway wire forward through the cable ties until I reached a point that I could run it to the battery positive post. I used a crimp on 12 gauge terminal of the right size to go on the battery terminal that is threaded and has a nut. I did not cut down the wire, just wrapped it up and dressed up the wire with cable ties.

Many people would say you should use a fuse. I did not. But you can get a inline blade fuse holder at any auto parts store. I would get a 12 gauge one, that is watertight and crimp it to the wire and and the terminal to the other end. I would use a 20 amp fuse.

Last with it installed, I would turn off the switch you installed. Jack up one side of the camper. Spin the wheel, then pull the lanyard out of the breakaway brake switch and see if the wheel will still turn. It should not. Re-install the lanyard and check that the wheel spins.

If your brakes don't apply when the lanyard was pulled, you either have an issue with how you did it, or the brakes have an issue. You might want to test the breakaway before you start.

[inghamm]

tentcamper: thanks so much! This sounds great to me.

[TMfor4ofus]

We also have the electric jack wired directly to the battery. Sometimes it just quits and a few minutes later it works again? Doesn't seem to be a loose connection because wiggling the wires doesn't help? Does it overheat / overload or something?
Good info on the breakaway Thanks

[Kidkraz]

Do you have a separate ground wire? When I installed my jack, I didn't add a dedicated ground wire and it would cut out on a whim. I added a separate ground wire and have had zero issues since.