Wiring up Dump trailer for Battery charging

[HEYBOSS]

We have a Dodge PK with factory hitch wiring. What do I need to have the vehicle charge the Dump trailer's battery? Just run the 12v wire from the truck to trailer battery? Customer was told he needed some kind of box to make it work and pretty expensive. I know that on Campers we just run the 12v wire to Battery but not sure if the Campers are already set up with whatever box is needed, TIA.

 

[KBalzuweit]

Campers have a box in them that turns 110 into 12 and also regulates and charges the battery. My idea would be buy a battery isolator and run a wire back to a plug and that way you could allow your truck to charge your battery and then the trailer will not be able to drain the truck battery.



Karl

 

[HBarlow]

HeyBoss:



The minimum you need is a seven pin male connector on the dump trailer to plug into the female seven pin on the back of the Dodge PK towing vehicle.



However, if the dump trailer draws high current when lifting the dump bed the truck's wiring may not provide sufficient current to prevent discharging the dump trailer's battery. I have no idea how much current the dump bed lift draws.



If the dump bed requires high current you may have to run a heavy gauge wire from truck battery positive terminal to the dump trailer's battery.



The expensive box you were told about was probably a battery isolator which would provide power to the dump trailer when the truck's ignition switch was on but isolate the truck battery when ignition is switched off to avoid draining truck batteries.

 

[Peter Campbell]

I always ( after blowing the fuse a coulpleofthree times) run the winch on the car trailer or the hydrailics on the dump with the 7- way disconnected, then hook it back up to recharge. I put in nice heavy B+ wires and good grounds. Thinner wire would heat up and not blow the fuse- if it heats up too much you willl have a fire. Sometimes need to pull out the 110V charger and open up the battery box- easier on the truckr than idling for extended time just to charge a trailer battery.

 

[Whitmore]

Fred, my dad has a dump trailer and they draw a bunch of amps, what I finally did for him was to run a hot wire back from the truck battery, this wire was welding lead, I used the male female welding connection right at the rear bumper of the truck and extended the other end from the trailer battery, it works great! Before this we were replacing a battery a year on the dump trailer.



Cheers, Kevin

 

[HEYBOSS]

Thanks for the replies and ideas. I thing that the box used may be an isolator like mentioned above, then it would make sense that if the pump draws a lot of current, it could heat up the trailer and seven pin wiring and burn them. May have to look into it, I also like Kevin's idea.

 

[stg2500]

One of the dump trailers that I looked at was wired similarly to what Whitmore was describing. This trailer had the flat two terminal heavy duty disconnects similar to those that are found on the portable receiver mount winches and jumper cables. This requires the hot wire to be wired from the truck battery back to the rear of the truck.

 

[HEYBOSS]

One thing I forgot to mention is that the trailer battery is a deep cycle Marine/RV. Don't know if that has any affect when being charged all the time when it's hooked to truck?



The pump looks like it's pretty heavy and may draw a lot of juice.

I'll have to get the trailer back to further investigate.

 

[Bloomy]

HEYBOSS,

My trailer uses the constant hot that is for electric brakes as a trickle charge for the dump. There is a 25 amp in-line fuse at the battery. As long as the battery has a decent charge the fuse won't pop. When it is low it might draw enough to pop it. The trailer has surge brakes so it doesn't need the electric brake wiring. The battery is also a deep cycle marine.



Thomas