Battery - Not Working

[Jeremy Witt]

Hello,

This is the second summer we have been camping in our Scamp. This spring, I charged up the battery, that had been stored all winter. When I put it back in the Scamp, I unknowingly hooked the wires up to the wrong terminals on the battery. The colors seem backward, but then I saw sticker that said otherwise. Anyway, now nothing works on battery.

Is it dead? Or did I blow a fuse?

Everything works fine when plugged in.

Thanks!

[Suz]

I'm not positive but I think most of the batteries in our trailers (especially the newer ones) have an inline fuse to keep from blowing the system. Mine is close to the battery. I'd check that first.

A quick call to Scamp might be the best for a quick answer.

[shirley munson]

I'm not positive but I think most of the batteries in our trailers (especially the newer ones) have an inline fuse to keep from blowing the system. Mine is close to the battery. I'd check that first.

A quick call to Scamp might be the best for a quick answer.

Lights don't care if the current is reversed. Motors run backwards if +- are wrong, so maybe no harm no foul. Just don't run water pump! Or radio either.

[Gina D.]

It is more likely you blew a fuse than ruined your battery. Thats what they put them there for.

Simple things first.. check your fuses.

Power supplies of items ARE sensitve to reversals and on the cheap stuff, they are not protected, generally. Or they are internally fused in one way or another, and not real user fixable. If nothing was on when you misswired, they probably were not harmed, a fuse on your 12v line just went.

Did anyone mention to check the fuses?

[jrnutpaul]

I'm not sure about what I'm going to say, but there may be two inline fuses between the battery and your converter. The first should be on the positive wire a few inches from the battery terminal. The second fuse is somewhere inline within the trailer. I've read on this forum that it may be hard to locate. In all probability a fuse is all that has gone wrong. In my unit, if I hook up the wire in reverse 1 or 2 30amp fuses will blow at the converter.

Paul

[Benny K]

Jeremy, did you do a load test or a voltage test on the battery proper? I believe that depending on how long, and what was hooked up, it possibly drained the battery down completely....it possibly wouldn`t blow the fuses since you only reversed the polarity and if there was no short, or high current drain, then the fuse doesn`t know that there is a problem.....Benny

[Sonny]

Benny is right. The fuses in the trailer itself will not open from reversed polarity. I don't know any thing about converters, but it may have a protective feature that opens a fuse when the battery is wired wrong. This was Paul's experience. But I don't see why this would prevent the trailer lights, etc. from working.

I would do the load check on the battery before anything else. An auto parts store should be able to do this for you.

[Gina D.]

Unless it arced.

Don't ask me how I know this.