Fuzion FZ 300

[Vidorcom]

When towing should'nt my truck be charging batteries? Full charge when left campsite towed 12 hours and battery was dead?

[Ron]

Welcome to the forum. 1st off the battery in the trailer shouldn't go dead unless you had something running. Second yes the tv should charge the battery on the trailer. I would check at the tv plug to see if you have power at that point, note key has to be on to put power back to the plug on the newer rigs. If you did not have anything running in the trailer while traveling and you were plugged into shore power, on the control panel it will always show fully charged when plugged in, when disconnected and went dead you probably need to check the battery or batteries for water levvel or maybe even just need to be replaced. Hope this helps. Happy Campin............Ron

[Vidorcom]

Ron-

Thank you for the reply. We just bought the trailer last week and have had nothing but troubles running this battery dead. Night 1 left heater on and battery died about 1 am. In the am it was so dead I could not even turn over the generator, I would have to jump. I tried plugging truck in and still would not charge battery.

We left from one campsite to another and by the time we mad it to the second it was dead again. Nothing was on besides fridge.

[Festus2]

Something to check in regards to your fridge........ My Dometic fridge has a "Climate Control" switch that controls the humidity level in the fridge and runs on 12v. If this switch has been left in the ON position, it will draw 12v continuously and will drain your battery fairly quickly.
This small, black rocker switch is located beneath the top decorative panel that houses the control panel. You have open the fridge door to access this switch.
Depending upon your fridge model, you may or may not have one of these Climate Control switches.
I rarely use this feature but when I do, the RV is always plugged into shore power.

Not sure if this might shed some light on your draining battery.

[SteveC7010]

The tow vehicle charging up the trailer battery is a relatively slow process. Running the truck for a half hour won't restore much of the charge.

You need to inventory **EVERYTHING** in the trailer that might be on.
The heater you mentioned will pull down a battery that is not fully charged very quickly. The blower motor uses a lot of current.

Go away for 5 hours with all the scare lights on and you'll likely have drawn it way down.


Same for the interior lights. They draw more than you think. That's why so many of us have talked about LED conversions.


Festus2 already mentioned the heater strip on the fridge, but it bears repeating. That will suck a battery down fast.


If the battery has been pulled way down, an hour or two of generator time to run the on board convertor is insufficient to restore a full charge to that battery. If you have a high capacity charger that you can connect to the generator, it will recharge faster, but still needs time.

Dry camping requires thoughtful electricity conservation by everyone in your group. It has to be a team effort. And it requires planned recharging that will bring the battery back up to full capacity every day.

[Vidorcom]

Thank you everyone for response's. Towing 12 hours should not drain battery to empty it should at least stay where it was when we left. Only thing left on while towing was the Fridge. I will check the heater strip. Overnight when the heater drained battery hooking up the truck and letting it run I thought it would give enough juice to crank generator over....It did not I had to jump the battery for the generator to fire up.

[Hunter757]

It sounds like you have only one battery? If so this will not last very long in a large trailer with a few lights running and the heater. When the power went out for a few days our trailer has 2 12V battery's and I had to use my truck to charge them back up. We only ran a few lights and the heater and our battery's are brand new.

I would check your 7 pin plug on your truck to be sure its charging, I know on some Ford's there is a fuse that can be left out and your tow trailer will not get charged.

Is your onboard charging system working when you run your generator or contected to 120V ?

I hope you can find the issue soon, Happy Camping

[Vidorcom]

You are correct with only 1 battery. I just ordered a new one. Generator and 120 charges everything no problem, just not my truck.

[Hunter757]

I would say you need to get a 12V test light and check your truck's plug to be sure its working correctly. One battery will not make it longer then one night with a few lights going and the heater plus all the other non use items like the LP detector, fridge and so on.

In the future I plan on installing 6 volt batteries if you go to intersate battery's web sight you can see what you can run and how long what an eye opener for me, along with everyone on here that talk about this upgrade and worth every penny if you do alot of dry camping.