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Old 09-19-2021, 05:30 AM   #21
flybouy
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No wiring diagrams are available from Keystone. They are considered proprietary and if they did hand them out I don’t know what the chances would be of it matching any given unit. In other words, any 2 otherwise identical trailers coming off the line could be wired and plumbed diferently.

In reading your post there are 2 discrepancis with your "battery usage math". First, the vast majority of batteries supplied by RV dealers are flooded cell 12 vdc "dual purpose" (think marine starting/deep cycle battery). The battery will likely have an 85 ah or less capacity. As they are flooded cell only ~50% or less of that capacity is actually useable before the battery is damaged. For easy math let's say you have 40 ah to work with before things stop working. At a mere 1 amp draw you are looking at less than 2 days.

The actual battery drain can vary widely depending on the units fitment. Besides the obvious battery capacity and condition if a trailer has any blutooth operated systems duch as InCommand then that system is always on communicating looking for a signal. Unlike a powered vehichle the stereo may have a display that's always on so there's more drain than just the memory presets.
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Old 09-19-2021, 07:52 AM   #22
Gunny Mike
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I got tired of having a dead battery so I pull my battery out when it not in use and have it connected to a 100 watt solar panel. It's a pain but I keep it charged up. On the day of a trip I hook it up to my battery charger to make sure it's fully charged. It's also kind of hard to steal a TT without a battery connected to the leveling system.
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Old 09-19-2021, 09:54 AM   #23
Bandit12
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I had a 50 amp RV pedestal installed at home so I can keep my trailer plugged in whenever we aren't on the road with it. That said, I also have the OTG package and I swapped out two nearly new 12 volt batteries with two Napa GC2 6 volt batteries. I was rather surprised to see the positive and ground to trailer cables were approximately 2 gauge cable and the jumper from the second battery to the primary battery was approximately 12 gauge. When I swapped out the 12's for the 6's, I used the factory positive cable for the connection to the trailer, repurposed the factory ground cable as my series jumper, and got a 42 inch long automotive 4 gauge lug to lug ground cable to connect the second battery to the trailer ground. Has been working perfectly so far. Love having the factory OTG package. We went for a long weekend over Memorial day, used the inverter to power the TV later in the evening (fire restrictions in place so no camp fires) and watched movies, of course the water pump and lights. Never had to start or even unload the generator for power.
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Old 09-19-2021, 11:07 AM   #24
quaddriver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bandit12 View Post
I had a 50 amp RV pedestal installed at home so I can keep my trailer plugged in whenever we aren't on the road with it. That said, I also have the OTG package and I swapped out two nearly new 12 volt batteries with two Napa GC2 6 volt batteries. I was rather surprised to see the positive and ground to trailer cables were approximately 2 gauge cable and the jumper from the second battery to the primary battery was approximately 12 gauge. When I swapped out the 12's for the 6's, I used the factory positive cable for the connection to the trailer, repurposed the factory ground cable as my series jumper, and got a 42 inch long automotive 4 gauge lug to lug ground cable to connect the second battery to the trailer ground. Has been working perfectly so far. Love having the factory OTG package. We went for a long weekend over Memorial day, used the inverter to power the TV later in the evening (fire restrictions in place so no camp fires) and watched movies, of course the water pump and lights. Never had to start or even unload the generator for power.

from your description, those 6volt-ers are in series...an old trick I learnt way back when doing dual 12 v parallel - use the coach positive to one battery and the coach negative to the other, then the parallel cables (+ to +, - to -) use the same, heavy gauge...that way wire resistance, even a low value, never comes to play and the batteries are treated as equals charging and discharging...tends to make them age the same. With our motorhome we also had genset start and aux engine start so we sould pull 140amps continuous, 200 surge.


I know people with large trailers than run 4-8 12v golf cart batteries in series as they run a giant inverter off them to run the AC at night from battery, but they use the same kind of setup, but much more convoluted to get the same resistance.
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Old 09-19-2021, 11:17 AM   #25
quaddriver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flybouy View Post
No wiring diagrams are available from Keystone. They are considered proprietary and if they did hand them out I don’t know what the chances would be of it matching any given unit. In other words, any 2 otherwise identical trailers coming off the line could be wired and plumbed diferently.

In reading your post there are 2 discrepancis with your "battery usage math". First, the vast majority of batteries supplied by RV dealers are flooded cell 12 vdc "dual purpose" (think marine starting/deep cycle battery). The battery will likely have an 85 ah or less capacity. As they are flooded cell only ~50% or less of that capacity is actually useable before the battery is damaged. For easy math let's say you have 40 ah to work with before things stop working. At a mere 1 amp draw you are looking at less than 2 days.

The actual battery drain can vary widely depending on the units fitment. Besides the obvious battery capacity and condition if a trailer has any blutooth operated systems duch as InCommand then that system is always on communicating looking for a signal. Unlike a powered vehichle the stereo may have a display that's always on so there's more drain than just the memory presets.

I was just using 140a/h as a frinstance...a big 30 group meets that easy. I have a new from camping world G24 interstate deep cycle, if it HAS a marine starting rating...thats a bonus, the MS rating means the plates are thicker and held up with thicker webbing to prevent cell shorts from the pounding. and it can withstand a heavy drawdown in short periods. I think winne had strict G24/DCs in them but the boat and TLB both use MS/DC batteries - for the beatings.



But like I said, the a/h rating is not linear, it runs linear to the first de-rate when the state of charge (SOC) drops below 90%, the a/h rating will hold for that 10%, i.e. in a 140ah case. 14 hours at 1 amp then its 90% and it changes. Used to be you could find this out...but not anymore.


Bummer they dont give the wiring with the trailer paperwork, I was surprised to find that...winnie had the coach engineering in them, wiring, plumbing, hard points etc. But she also had the + for every DC circuit was purple 12ga and the - was green....
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