Battery Problem

[Roger L.]

Our tow vehicle is not charging our battery. I talked to the folks at Casita and they told me to test the voltage coming from the black wire on my TV. It should read around 12 volts. My reading was 8.2. Does anyone know what would cause this?? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Roger

[Benny K]

Have you checked your voltage at the vehicle battery with the charge line disconnected? If the vehicle battery is charging normally, which it probably is, it would seem that the wiring is too small of a gauge or there is a bad connection somewhere in the wiring connections to the trailer battery or a fault in the trailer battery itself......Benny

[Al V]

what Benny said! probably a bad connection
1 o'clock postion is the chargeing line on th TV conection
7 o'clock is the ground
check the ground to make sure it is good

[Roger L.]

Al & Benny,

Thanks for the help. I will check the items you mentioned.

Roger

[Joe MacDonald]

if the tow vehicle was factory wired, it could have a diode to protect the battery from draining when hooked up to the trailer. If the diode failed it could give weird readings. Take the reading with the vehicle running and again when not running, and compare.
take it with the trailer unplugged from the tow, and then with the trailer hooked up.
After a weekend of boondocking it takes me a good 3-4 hour tow to charge the trailer battery.

[Kyle Martz]

Another Newbie with questions that might also help others. I am installing a seperate battery for stereo and DVD in my egg, and am wondering about Optima Batteries. Which one should I use, and given a choice of size.. which size should I install???

[LindyW2]

Roger
have you removed battery and checked its water level? also Battery connections maybe loose or corroded Check connections at converter box as well for being loose.

[Pete Dumbleton]

There are pro's and con's on the AGM (like Optima) batteries -- One of the con's is that they don't hold quite as many AmpHours as common lead-acid batteries -- However, in either case, you want the battery to be a DeepCycle battery, not a Starting or Combination (Hybrid) battery.