Odd question

[sthomasaz]

I have a Jayco pop-up. I believe it’s a 1999 model. I bought it from a friend. Apparently when you hook it to power everything works except the interior lights. My friend said that you need to still have it hooked up to a battery for the interior lights. This seems like an odd design.

My question is, could you hook an inverter Or something where the battery hooked up to power the lights? I really don’t want to buy a battery just to run two interior lights.

And on a semi-related note, do you know if I don’t do anything, does the battery power the little headphone looking Jacks you can buy the lights for or is that powered off of the plug?

[Grumpy]

There was usually a switch on the front of the converter/ charger that switched the lights from battery to converter. The jacks would also be powered by either the battery or converter.

[oldmanAZ]

Welcome to the forum.

If the trailer has electric brakes, then a battery is needed to power the brakes through a 'breakaway' switch in case the trailer becomes unhitched when being towed.

[Seann45]

Originally Posted by oldmanAZ

Welcome to the forum.

If the trailer has electric brakes, then a battery is needed to power the brakes through a 'breakaway' switch in case the trailer becomes unhitched when being towed.

X2

[Isaacs]

Originally Posted by sthomasaz

I have a Jayco pop-up. I believe it’s a 1999 model. I bought it from a friend. Apparently when you hook it to power everything works except the interior lights. My friend said that you need to still have it hooked up to a battery for the interior lights. This seems like an odd design.

My question is, could you hook an inverter Or something where the battery hooked up to power the lights? I really don’t want to buy a battery just to run two interior lights.

And on a semi-related note, do you know if I don’t do anything, does the battery power the little headphone looking Jacks you can buy the lights for or is that powered off of the plug?

Everything that works with the battery should work with the converter; you shouldn't need a battery for your lights to work.

Most popups have some sort of disconnect that prevents the ceiling lights from coming on when the roof is in the lowered position. This is to stop the lights from burning the canvas or anything else they may come in touch with. On my (non Jayco) popup the switch was on the sink that had to be folded down in order to lower the roof. See if you can find the switch and try shorting it out to see if it's defective.

Does your yellow "porch" light work? In my case, that was not affected by the disconnect switch.

[erich82]

Does any other 12V powered device work while plugged in to 120V? Porch light, fans (with the 1/4 plug), water pump, cigarette lighter plug are all 12V, and the supply comes from the converter. If none of these work, look at your converter.