when my wife and i decided to buy a camper, we picked the quality of product over quality of dealer. well needless to say, the service matches the dealer.

tomorrow i am taking my camper in for the second time for the same problem. the charger is not keeping my battery charged. i always keep it pluged in at home and we just got back from a 5 day trip to gatlinburg, tn where it was plugged in to a 30 amp the whole time and when i got home, my battery was dead as a door nail. last time they said it had the wrong fuse and a bad connection. well here it is again. no telling what they are going to say about it this time.

as for my truck charging it, last oil change i had the plug checked out at the dealer and they said all is good there, yes i have the relay in. so it isnt my truck. keeping it 55-60 the whole way, it took us 12 hours to get home and still no charge on the battery.

i know the lemon law is 3 repairs, but i have a bad feeling they are not going to get it right this time. and after thinking about it, i really want a bigger camper. so maybe it might work out good for me. we started with a big pop-up camper just to see if we would use it, and here it is 4 months later and we have already used it 5 times for a total of about 20 nights, so i would love to have about a 28ft bunk house. i guess we will see. just wondering if anyone knew if it includes campers also. thanks in advance....

 

It is possible you have a bad battery

 

i hope so.......i really like the camper and the note and it is really all we need right now......they charged it last time so we will se what happens......it is just a thought........thanks

 

I had almost the same problem. I found a neutral wire in the converter that wasn't terminated correctly. The screw was on the insulation rather than on the copper. I loosened the screw, backed the wire up a bit, and re-tightened the screw. No more problems. I was actually getting a brown out situation when I was plugged into shore power. In other words, everything that ran on 12V would go dim. If I disconnected the battery, everything would operate normally. It took almost 3 hrs to show up. We did our PDI with the unit plugged in and everything worked perfectly. Then we did a 12V inspection with the unit unplugged and everything worked perfectly. IT sounds like you got a bad converter or have a fuse blown. Have you checked the battery to see if it has voltage?

 

not this time.........i actually took the battery cover off last night and found the dumba$$ didnt put the wing nuts back on. the wires were just barly touching the terminals.......just enough to run the battery down........it is back at the dealer now and they will be rechecking everything and i also had a water leak that damaged the wood on a cabinet so they have to take pics and send to the manufactor to see what they will do about it......i used the pressure regulator and everything and it still leaked at the hose connection on the inside of the camper....so we will see..........thanks for the help.......

 

I have just one question.... why didn't you check that in the first place? If you bought a new camper, and you don't expect to have to do anything to it, then you need to return it now and get another hobby. I am sorry to be so blunt but I haven't seen an RV yet that doesn't need some kind of attention as soon as you get it. As for the water leaks..... I went over all my fittings and drain traps. They were all a little loose. They were however, not leaking. The traps were. You basically have a small house behind your truck that moves and bounces over the road. You will need to check these things periodically. If you are not handy and have a good mechanical knowledge of how things operate, your new TT will spend much of it's life at the dealership until your warranty runs out. Once your warranty runs out, it is approximately $98/ hr to fix stupid problems. It will take a minimum of 2 weeks to get them repaired and it might have been fixed correctly and it might have been made worse. This is speaking from experience and some of the hack jobs I have seen from large reputable RV dealerships. My friend had a slide out that needed adjusting. He brought it to the dealership under warranty. They adjusted the slide and still didn't have it right, so they took a hammer and beat the hell out of the aluminum trim that goes around the slide to "make it fit". I don't trust dealerships to do anything. I had one issue with a Dometic refrigerator. The igniter wouldn't stop clicking after ignition. I had to bring it to the dealer. They fixed it and it took them 2 weeks. IT was a 5 min repair! Everything else has been very minor and I have been lucky. I did have 2 electrical problems.... but I am an electrician.... they were fixed in no time with zero cost. Items loosening and caulking that needs to be checked and roofs that need to be inspected and cleaned and winterization to protect your lines and pipes go along with RV ownership. Get used to it. IT will happen. I have had my rig for almost 2 years. It has been fantastic. We spent 30+ days at the beach this past summer and many days in other locations. Worth a little aggrevation if you ask me

 

you werent blunt......i am new to this and i need to learn.....i pretty much thought i paid that much for something, that is should be right and if something breaks, then take it back for the warranty.....as far as the battery not working.....i didnt relize it until we returned and the battery was dead as a door nail for the second time. i wanted to take it back to show then what they did and get a new battery out of it....i know a battery can only run down so many times b4 it wont even hold a charge......we found some new sites to camp at and they do not have power so i will need it and i want to make sure it will work......as fas as the workmanship of the service......it is my fault, but i normally trust someone til they give me a reason not to.....to a point that is.....but yes.....i will now start going over everything on the camper b4 each trip and after to make sure it is ready to go.........and once again thanks for your help....like i said i am learning here.....

 

This is just a suggestion, If you plan on running off the battery for any length of time, I would suggest getting 2, 6 volt batteries such as Trojans. THey are made for golf carts and last a very long time before you need to recharge. Unless you have a generator that you can use in the CG you will most likely run your batteries low in less than a weekend. If you are really conservative and don't need your furnace, you might be OK. I have been dealing with RV's for almost 30 yrs. I started helping dad when I was a young boy and now have one of my own. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. You are lucky if thats all you have go wrong with your new TT. Good luck and congrats.

 

i didnt think about the golf cart batteries......they have a good marine battery on it now..........and i didnt know the furnace uses power also......i thought just propane, but then again i think about it......it needs something to light it........i also ran into some ppl that have the same thing i have and they were at the CG without power and he made an extension to his 7 way plug and would plug the camper back to the truck and run for 30min at a time about twice a day to recharge the battery...........generators arent allowed there either.......we have had our camper since june 07 and have used it about a total of 20 nights and love it......kinda wish we had a bigger one.....we looked at some yesterday while we were dropping it off and they said they could give a pretty good trade, but since we just bought it there will still be about $2000 neg equity......so i think we are going to keep it at least 2-3 years and think about another one......but thanks again for your help......later

 

Plus run the blower... That's what sucks up all the juice.. Depending on how much it runs during the night, you could drain a fully charged 12v battery in a couple of nights.

If this happens, instead of hooking up to the trailers 7 pin to charge the battery, just put the nose of your truck to it and use some jumper cables to the trailer battery and let the truck idle for 30 minutes... It'll feed 14.5 volts to the trailer battery instead of the 13.5 volts you will get from the 7 pin..

Now that you have tightened the wing nuts on the trailer battery, hook up your trailers 7 pin and idle the truck and get a multimeter and check the voltage on the trailer battery. It should be about 1.5 volts higher then it is when the truck is not idling.

That's what charges your trailer battery while towing.

If you don't get any increase in voltage when connected and the truck is idling, then you have more work to do.... 12v charge wire fuse in the truck, a fuse in the trailer, the trailers converter, etc....

Good Luck!

Mitch

 

Not only the furnace blower but, the water heater, and fridge also need 12V to operate. Add these plus the pump for water, and some lights and you'll draw a battery down very fast. I got a battery when I bought my TT also. They said it was an RV/ Marine battery. It is nothing more than a glorified deep cycle starting battery. I wouldn't trust it to run for a weekend. There is a state park here that I wold love to go to but there is no power. Until I build a trojan battery bank and a solar charger I am not going to attempt it. We have done the whole hook the truck up to the trailer thing when I was younger. It took about 2 hrs to charge the battery fully. We used to camp on the beach in MA for about 2 weeks at a time. It was like tent camping with hard sides. We still used battery powered lights, we used the bath house as much as possible, and still fought with 12v power. Solar has come a long way since then along with the Honda generators that are very quiet. They do come with a hefty price tag though. Most CG's with no power will let you run a generator during the day to charge your batteries. The solar deal makes no noise and will do the same thing if you have a big enough solar panel.

 

I love my Honda 3000i.... It not only powers my house if the power goes out, but I take it along on dry camping trips to do just that.. Charge the battery, plus get some microwave time and have the option to run the A/C!!

Have not thought about solar too much... Yeah, I know that it's around and all, but just have not gone that route... Yet....

For just charging the batteries, a Honda 1000 would do the trick and be like carrying around a suitcase! My 3000 weighs some 160 lbs and it's not easy to get into the back of the truck! I have a wench setup in my garage, but it's just one extra thing to do!

Mitch

 

Thats a very good idea to take two 6 volt batteries and run them in series. To save money and still extend the DC output, he could simply run a second 12v deep cycle battery like the one he has (would only need to buy one battery). Simply put the + and - together to keep 12v. You dont want to make 24 volts.

Solar is a good idea. You need a bit of solar panel area and a regulator, but nothing out of the reach of a camper that can afford a TT. Without getting hardcore into it, you can get some decent stuff from northerntool.com.