Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Not the best when it comes to electric...trailer will be a 6x12 vnose..thinking of keeping it simple and CHEAP...
-Two deep cycle batteries mounted on tongue of trailer wired together
-seperate wire going to truck wiring harness to charge battery off of truck alternator when traveling
-another line coming off the batteries and going into the cargo trailer via a small hole drilled through the floor(do most of you go in through the floor or the sidewall?)
-that wire will go to a 12 volt breaker box
-the 12 volt breaker box will feed the light switch (two interior lights and one porch light)..as well as 1 or 2 12 volt receptacles for charging laptop, phones, cameras etc....

That will be the 12 volt system

-Next will be either a 30 amp chord going through the side or bottom of the trailer(again not sure which one would be better) wired to a 30 amp breaker box...or ill mount the actual plug on the sidewall of the trailer and that plug will be wired to the 30 amp box
-that 30 amp box will feed 2 or 3 receptacles..one of them will be 20 amp in order to occasionally run my 5000 btu air conditioner..
-then I will need some sort of charger/inverter to charge the batteries when Im plugged in and also to convert the ac power to dc power in order to run the lights..Not sure which charger/inverter to get or where to get it????I hear I should get a 3 stage charger with a float so I could properly maintain the batteries??any good model that you guys are using??

Does this sound like a good plan?/? any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated..not too confident when it comes to electric

I wonder how the trailer is prewired from the factory??..I know that the trailer I ordered is coming with 2 12 volt interior lights with a wall switch as well as a porch light with a wall switch (not sure if its gonna be a seperate switch or not..Probably not)

Not sure If I want to go the above route or the cheapest and simplest route of all..
-getting a 30 amp extension chord and plugging that chord into a 6 outlet surge protector..then I could plug whatever I wanted in the surge protector..My only concern with that would be if I was running the air conditioner would I be able to run anything else off of the surge protector??
- then I could just get a cheap battery charger and just plug it into the 6 outlet surge protector whenever I had power..
I could also get one of those cheap 400 watt black and decker walmart inverters that come with a couple dc receptacles built in that I could plug laptop, phones, into when I dont have ac power.

Get a new energy star air conditioner, seriously 20 amp for a 5k btu?
my little 5k LG is tagged at 515w and 4.8 amp with an eer of 9.7. It has a regular prong GFI plug too.

I bought this from lowes and it's great you can seperate your appliances so you can turn either side on or off with a switch that has a small light in it.

Has a heavy 15ft cord that I ran through the floor and I strapped the end to the tounge I just plug the power cord in to the end from the outside.
Now I have my AC in the back wall I will run the other drop cord from the generator back to the AC.

So I have been reading the electricity secrets forum and trying to learn some basics..If I just do a simple ac system consisting of a marinco charger inlet-hooked up to a 3 prong extension chord with gfci..and then a couple of power strips..what capacity extension chord will I need to go from the campground power source to my cargo trailer???30amp??15 amp??I just figured 30 amp was standard for rvs and boats but do I even need it?? In the summer I will run a 5000 btu ac, in the winter an electric heater..charging phones, laptops, maybe a tv...

When I am at home I have a average 100 ft extention cord I plug into my surge protector and everything works fine.
I have only used my honda generator on the road but I bought 2 of the heaviest 25ft drop cords lowes sells and they were around 100.00 each not cheap.
I just have to cut off the AC if I want to run the hot water heater or microwave or it will trip the breaker,but that is only for a few minutes then I turn the AC back on.?
I bought a 1100 watt inverter I have hooked up to a battery so I can watch the TV and run the fan and mini fridge and not have to run the generator, of course if I am running the generator I plug those things into the surge protector.

One way to think of electricity is to use a water hose and how water flows in the hose.
a 25 foot hose hooked to the city water will have the full pressure at the end of the hose as it does at the hookup end.
while a 100 foot hose hooked to the city water will have a lot less pressure at the end of the hose vs what is at the hookup end.

now think of a pipe 2 inch's in diameter with small rubber balls inside, these represent the electrons in electricity
the "balls" are pushed from one end out the other rubbing against each other causing heat
if you have the correct size pipe the heat is controlled use a smaller pipe and the heat rises larger pipe less rubbing less heat,

same with wire and electrons say you have a 16 gage 100 foot extension cord and want to power your AC unit
first it will heat up because you are trying to push the electrons thru a to small wire
second like the long water hose you won't have enough electric at the user end start with 120 volts end with 100 volts (example only not necessary what you would read)

that is one reason jwhite trips the breaker if he were to use a cord say a 10 or 8 gage one he could run his AC and water heater.

My suggestion to you would be use a trailer 30 amp cord into a distrubition/charger panel
one with 120 breakers and 12 volt breakers and it would charge your cargo trailer battery when ever you are hooked into 120 and wiring is very simple to do.

phew......that is one long post sorry.
pete

Thinking of buying a black and decker 3 stage smart battery charger..How many amps should I get? 15-10-2? 25-10-2? they even have a 40 amp smart charger..I want to be able to charge the battery when plugged into 120 and then continue to use the 12 volt stuff while its being charged.
?

I have a 30amp breaker box. One side of the trailer runs off of one circuit. The other side runs off the other. Each side has 3 outlets(1 exterior, and two interior).

This past weekend I had a heater and bathroom light running off one side. The other side had the ceiling lights, fridge, microwave, dvd player and tv. No problems.

In the summer I ran a 6500 BTU a/c off the same circuit as the heater is on now. Still no problems.

For my needs I went with the 30 amp vs. the inlet I used in the td. I'm happy that I have more power available.

All of this was done at the factory making it real easy for me.
Barb

can anyone recommend a good 3 stage smart charger that is not too expensive..I want to skip the converter and just have the battery charger..