How important is your battery if…

FrankieSaysRelax · 03-26-2022, 02:09 PM

Being a complete noob to the intricacies of travel trailers, exactly how important is it what battery your trailer has if the only place you go is to full service hook ups? Whenever I’m out I’m in a 30amp site, or a 50amp with an adapter. What exactly does the battery do beside the LED clock?

RoadrunnerII · 03-26-2022, 02:20 PM

Your brakes if the trailer becomes unhooked from your tow vehicle.
Also and likely more important to most campers if the pedistal power goes out it keeps the gas fridge running. Your lights. Your fresh water pump if you have water on board.
Your carbon monoxide and propane detector.
So you do need it to be functional
As a side note wife and I stop for lunch when travelling.
Make lunch run slide out and in. Sit in camper stretch a bit
Hit the road refreshed
We also use our trailer facilities for a pee stop when needed.
Covid and all we felt safer.

RoadrunnerII

Kim Gass · 03-26-2022, 02:25 PM

Your trailer has two separate electric systems
copied from
https://rvshare.com/blog/rv-electric...other%20things.

One RV, Two Electrical Systems
Your RV has two separate electrical systems: a 12-volt DC electrical system and a 120-volt AC system. The 12-volt system is powered by a battery (or in some cases, multiple batteries), and it powers things such as the start-up on your water heater, furnace, and refrigerator, plus most of the lights in your RV’s living space, your water pump, your carbon monoxide detector, and a number of other things. The 120-volt system is powered by an RV electrical hookup plug or a generator, and it powers daily use items like kitchen appliances, your TV, and other large electrical appliances.

FrankieSaysRelax · 03-26-2022, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadrunnerII

Your brakes if the trailer becomes unhooked from your tow vehicle.
Also and likely more important to most campers if the pedistal power goes out it keeps the gas fridge running. Your lights. Your fresh water pump if you have water on board.
Your carbon monoxide and propane detector.
So you do need it to be functional
As a side note wife and I stop for lunch when travelling.
Make lunch run slide out and in. Sit in camper stretch a bit
Hit the road refreshed
We also use our trailer facilities for a pee stop when needed.
Covid and all we felt safer.

RoadrunnerII

Hey RR, would any of these things work if the battery is dead but you are plugged into the seven pin contact of the tow vehicle(when running of course)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kim Gass

Your trailer has two separate electric systems
copied from
https://rvshare.com/blog/rv-electric...other%20things.

One RV, Two Electrical Systems
Your RV has two separate electrical systems: a 12-volt DC electrical system and a 120-volt AC system. The 12-volt system is powered by a battery (or in some cases, multiple batteries), and it powers things such as the start-up on your water heater, furnace, and refrigerator, plus most of the lights in your RV’s living space, your water pump, your carbon monoxide detector, and a number of other things. The 120-volt system is powered by an RV electrical hookup plug or a generator, and it powers daily use items like kitchen appliances, your TV, and other large electrical appliances.

Hey Kim, So if my trailer battery is dead, even plugged into shore power 30amp service, none of these things will work?

**JFlightRisk** · 03-26-2022, 03:01 PM

Your converter will supply power to the 12 volt side and keep everything working when you're plugged into a pedestal. It should also charge your battery, unless either the battery is shot, or the charging side of the converter isn't working. If for some reason you have a power outage, they all stop working.

RoadrunnerII · 03-26-2022, 03:02 PM

So number 1 If you are hauling your trailer and the battery in trailer is not connected. Its against the law. Bouncing down the road and battery terminals banging about I would not do it. The charging line from your vehicle is live to the battery terminal. Sparks arcing not a good idea.
You can insulate the connection ends but still.
Its just a bad idea.
Connected at a park pedistal the converter in your trailer will be providing 12 volts DC to the battery cable. Again you can insulate the end with a few layers of electrical tape.
You spent significant money on the trailer... spend the $100-200 on at least one rv battery.
Yes the 12 volt DC devices will work while connected to pedistal
Be safe not sorry

RoadrunnerII

Isaacs · 03-26-2022, 03:13 PM

If your battery is dead or disconnected, your refrigerator will not function on propane during your trip. Your food may spoil and worst of all your beer will get warm! Twelve volt power from the tow vehicle (if available) would prevent this but you would still have no trailer brakes in the event of a breakaway.

**Midnightmoon** · 03-26-2022, 04:18 PM

If all you are doing is going from one full hookup site to another, a generic Marine/RV battery will be more than sufficient. They will have no problem running your breakaway, fridge, furnace for a short while, pump, etc. while you are traveling.

The owners that do a lot of boondocking or off grid camping will have sets of high quality lithium, etc. batteries.

RogerR · 03-26-2022, 04:18 PM

In the past I always had AC hookups. But lately I have found that camping at Cabelas is faster and cheaper on trips to my expected destination. But I have also run into more than one night where there was no hookups available. I have even paid for just a place to park at night a few times. Having power for brakes, pee stops, lunch and emergency camping makes a working battery a must for me.

dvspl · 03-26-2022, 04:53 PM

A working battery is a requirement. But that doesn't mean it has to be the highest quality or greatest capacity. You need enough battery to get you from full service campground to full service campground. That's all...

FrankieSaysRelax · 03-26-2022, 04:57 PM

Thank you everyone, for your time and expertise. It is greatly appreciated.
Happy camping this coming season!
frank d.

RedHorse1 · 03-26-2022, 04:59 PM

As stated, your batt is essential while towing as it will power the brakes if you have a “disconnect” event and is required by law. That aside, you don’t NEED the bat, however we use ours to pre-cool the fridge before a trip, run the fridge while towing, run the slides in/out and the lights while in storage. I am old, fat, lazy and “roughing it” means no sewer for us, with very few exceptions we always have utilities. Now WiFi in a CG? Ha! Don’t get me started. I suppose if you don’t need a batt for any of the reasons posted you might get along with a motorcycle batt or something similar. Not sure if the converter could charge something like that tho. We paid $100.00 for a tank of diesel last week ($4.989/gal), so paying $200 (or less) every 3-5 years for a batt is pretty much background noise.

bucko · 03-30-2022, 03:59 AM

If you have a generator (as most RV's do), you can run that for a hour or two to charge up the house battery. No need to run the gen all night, unless it's really cold, and you are running the heater, and don't have a full electrical hookup at the camp site. So here have mentioned their heater will die if running only off of the house battery after maybe 4 hours in really cold weather.

kirkelli · 03-30-2022, 08:53 AM

When i park for long period of time with full service, i shut off the main batteries after batteries are fully charged,... Your converter will run all DC circuits without the batteries. So to answer your question, the batteries have no significance when you are connected to long term AC service. Just make sure if you remove them or disconnect them, you have a circuit protection in place to avoid a short circuit at the battery posts connections. I would also place a protective cover over the positive battery lug at point of battery connection.

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