Battery Maintainer Question

[Dphillip]

I have 2015 Hawk and just replaced the original battery with a new Duracell. I’m storing the camper for winter and only occasionally drive the truck during these months. The camper is up on jacks and the truck is parked underneath. If I use a battery maintainer on the truck battery and plug the camper power cord into the outlet on the truck will the maintainer also keep the camper battery charged?

Thanks

 

[ntsqd]

If the camper has a power center it may have a rudimentary charger as part of that unit. I would not trust it to be a good charger. The one in our first camper was boiling the batteries. When I caught that I disabled it. When I re-wired that camper I included an on-board battery maintainer. Our new to us camper had a similar system. I disabled that before it could do any damage. It now has an on-board battery maintainer too, but I've not yet gotten the electrical system to the point where I can plug in shore power and have it work. So for now I plug it in directly.

Short answer: plug in the maintainer directly if you're not sure what your camper has. The tie-down access ports seem to be good candidates for this access.

 

[astropuppy]

The cheap way I've used with travel trailers is to use HD timer on the camper plug. Then set the timer to be on about 1 hour per day. I generally turn it on in the early morning to warm the battery up for the day.

 

[Dphillip]

If the camper has a power center it may have a rudimentary charger as part of that unit. I would not trust it to be a good charger. The one in our first camper was boiling the batteries.

My camper does have the factory on board charger but I question how effective it is? When the camper is not in use I would plug it into shore powers for a couple of days every few weeks or so. I was disappointed that the original battery only last 5 years since I take such good care of it. We never use our camper unless we’re plugged into shore power at an RV park so the batter has never been run down or drained. I definitely want to take care of this new battery hence my question about the maintainer on the truck battery or to obtain a dedicated maintainer for the camper battery.

 

[Norsman]

I plug into shore power and put a maintainer on the truck battery, hopefully I won’t toast my batteries but over two winters now no problem.

I can confirm that the shore power will also charge the truck battery by itself once a certain voltage is reached.

 

[Beach]

Is the truck equipped with an isolation relay that is only energized(sending charge to the camper) while the motor is running? If so equipped then you will not be charging the camper battery(unless you want to run the motor the whole time also). I would get a stand alone maintainer or a good multi stage charger like a Genius or similar.

 

[JaSAn]

My 2¢:

Safest way is to disconnect the camper battery and put it on its own maintainer. The camper battery should be disconnected whenever the camper is stored unless you know there are no parasitic loads that will drain it.

The power connection on your truck 7-pin should be off when the truck is off.

 

[camper rich]

My battery tender puts out 3.0 amps when selected for a 12 V battery. It has no setting for lead/acid or AGM type of batteries. My understanding is the AGM charges at a higher voltage. Will my tender do the job on my two 6 volt AGM Lifeline batteries that are connected in series to make them equivilent to one 12 V. battery?

 

[JaSAn]

The purpose of a battery maintainer is to keep your battery(s) at 100%. It is not intended to charge depleted batteries.
It serves the same purpose as the float stage on your 3-stage battery charger or controller: replacing internal battery losses while in storage. Works the same for AGM and FLA.

Mine only puts out 750 mA @ 13.5V (float voltage). It has kept my two GC2s healthy for 6 winters.

 

[Dphillip]

My 2¢:

Safest way is to disconnect the camper battery and put it on its own maintainer.

My Hawk has a master kill switch that completely isolates the battery so there is no power drain. It seems the prudent plan is to activate the master kill switch and install a dedicated maintainer on the camper battery.

Thanks for all the suggestions.