Charging while towing

[eamarquardt]

I often harbor the illusion that people want to understand how the "world rotates" and "how things work". I'm constantly a little disappointed that all they want is the answer distilled down to the fewest words possible. Preferably, yes or no.

Your propeller driven alternator won't work as well as just running a wire from your vehicles alternator to you trailer battery.

Save yourself a lot of money and work. DON'T DO IT! Is that simple and clear enough?

However, an alternative that will work at least once is to build your wind generator. Mount it on a football helmet with the blades oriented like a helicopter. Be sure to use a football helmet with a chin strap. Preferably two. Build a harness to hold your battery next to your chest. Connect the alternator to the battery. Find the highest bridge you can. Jump off. The propeller will turn the alternator and charge your battery. This procedure is GUARANTEED to work the first time. No doubt about it! Will it work a second time. Doubtful at best. Especially with the first "operator".

Hey, but what the heck, the bridge is there!!!!!!!!!

In person I'm often "counseled" that I'm too blunt. I frequently, to express my self clearly and succinctly, say to my two sons (25 and 23): "DON'T "EXPLETIVE" DO IT! I often find that is not clear enough for them to understand my thoughts. I temper that, sometimes, on the forum. Go figure.

Cheers,

Gus

[Wolfgang92025]

Mount it on a football helmet with the blades oriented like a helicopter. Be sure to use a football helmet with a chin strap. Preferably two. Build a harness to hold your battery next to your chest. Connect the alternator to the battery. Find the highest bridge you can. Jump off. The propeller will turn the alternator and charge your battery. This procedure is GUARANTEED to work the first time. No doubt about it! Will it work a second time. Doubtful at best. Especially with the first "operator".

Cheers,

Gus

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

No no noooooo, Gus…you misunderstood. Sorry.

I always find your scientific explanations about why something works (or doesn’t) fascinating and enlightening. When I said “just say it won’t work”, I meant jokingly that you can save me a lot of sleepness nights thinking about the silly “what ifs” I come up with. When I dream up some wild and skewed idea, just tell me it won’t work so I can get on to something else. When you say something will “maybe” work, I get all…consumed.

Keep up the good work my friend…

[eamarquardt]

Dear Tumbleweed,

If you weren't poking fun at me, I'd think you didn't love me.

If you "provoke" me, you'll hear from me in a PM.

Based upon our previous "pokes" I knew it was in fun. I just wanted to save you some sleepless nights and give you an alternative "wind power" solution to charge your batteries. As I said, it is GUARANTEED to work the first time.

Cheers,

Gus

[rpmawhinney]

Ok so I have converted my cargo trailer over and the last thing I need to do is figure out how to charge my deep cycle battery off of the tow vehicle ( a 2005 tacoma) There is a four prong on the trailer which I am willing to convert to a 7 prong. There is a 7 prong outlet on the truck. I unsnapped the back of the outlet on the truck and found that there are no empty prongs. I do not know what to do now. I was going to run a #10 from the battery to a 30 amp breaker back through the 7 prong to a 7 pron on the trailer then to the battery. I am confused now about what to do since there is no space on the tow vehicle outlet.

Oh yeah I am leaving sunday morning for a 2400 mile round trip to Indiana so needless to say I need to figure this out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks all

[WhitneyK]

What you have to be carefull of when charging a deep cycle battery with the tv charging system is putting too much charge too fast into the deep cycle. That's why there's a "special" setting on 110V battery chargers that are for deep cycle batteries. If you had a regular car battery in the td, no problem.

If you do hook up your charging system to your tv, don't forget to unhook it when parked overnight, wouldn't want to drain both batteries. Plus if you put too much draw on your td battery (like I've seen done with a winch set up, not that you have a winch, maybe a wench, but that's another story, but in that case could possibly cause things to heat up as well, namely a marriage, but then a wench shouldn't have any effect on a battery, uh, oh ya, were was I?) then you can overheat and burn up the 10ga wire to the tv system. Possibly causing a fire, but then again, that's what the relay is for.

Just my thought's and opinions, didn't say they were good ones.

[WhitneyK]

Hold that thought,...... went back to page one and reread MadJack's post, sounds good to me.
I told you it was only my opinion, and we all know what those are like........

May have to hook one up myself when we go on a 2 week trip. Hmmmm, wouldn't have to pay extra for electric camp spots,..... could use coleman stove instead of microwave,..... hmmmm sis-in-law just gave me new coleman stove,...... soundin' better......

[len19070]

There is a 7 prong outlet on the truck. I unsnapped the back of the outlet on the truck and found that there are no empty prongs. I do not know what to do now.

If your plug on the truck was factory installed and there are no empty terminals you may be all set to go on the truck...with the exception of a "Factory Fuse"

Check your hot terminal on the trucks plug and see if its hot. If not check your owners manual/fuse block and see if there's a fuse in the Trailer/towing slot. If its never been used many manufactures don't put them in.

It could be as simple as installing a fuse in the existing fuse block.

Now, as for wiring the trailer. A 7 prong plug is color labeled on the back.

A flat 4 wire code and a 7 wire plug are different. In that the wire colors on the 4 don't do the same as they do on a 7.

The 4 to 7 code is;

4 brown running = green on a 7

4 green right turn = brown on a 7

4 Yellow left turn = red on a 7

4 white ground = white on a 7

Happy Trails

Len

[Nobody]

Ok so I have converted my cargo trailer over and the last thing I need to do is figure out how to charge my deep cycle battery off of the tow vehicle ( a 2005 tacoma) There is a four prong on the trailer which I am willing to convert to a 7 prong. There is a 7 prong outlet on the truck. I unsnapped the back of the outlet on the truck and found that there are no empty prongs. I do not know what to do now. I was going to run a #10 from the battery to a 30 amp breaker back through the 7 prong to a 7 pron on the trailer then to the battery. I am confused now about what to do since there is no space on the tow vehicle outlet.

Oh yeah I am leaving sunday morning for a 2400 mile round trip to Indiana so needless to say I need to figure this out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks all

My 2008 Tacoma has the factory tow package (with the 7 pin electrical connector). It was pre-wired with the switched 'hot' wire (charge wire) in position #4 (1 o'clock position when looking toward the connector from the back of the truck). Black wire I think. Best way to check is with a test light (or multimeter). You should not have any power to the connector pins when the ignition is off. With the ignition turned on if your truck is wired like mine, the #4 position pin will show power. Mine also has a 30A fuse in the box just behind the battery for the tow charge line.

Here's pic of the fusebox showing the charge fuse (circled in yellow)

[norcal2]

Thanks for the plug info..the wire really isnt heavy enough for charging but is good to tap off of for other things! I just built an enclosed generator enclosure with slides to house 2 honda e1000i generators..i only use one now, and the purpose is to have it run while im driving to charge up my batteries and electric scooters inside, i use the other compartment for storage now, if i put on roof air, ill need 2000 watts which i can piggyback the two hondas together....so far it works good wish i could post pics but for some reason the file size is to large..i posted others...hmmm...

Ok so I have converted my cargo trailer over and the last thing I need to do is figure out how to charge my deep cycle battery off of the tow vehicle ( a 2005 tacoma) There is a four prong on the trailer which I am willing to convert to a 7 prong. There is a 7 prong outlet on the truck. I unsnapped the back of the outlet on the truck and found that there are no empty prongs. I do not know what to do now. I was going to run a #10 from the battery to a 30 amp breaker back through the 7 prong to a 7 pron on the trailer then to the battery. I am confused now about what to do since there is no space on the tow vehicle outlet.

Oh yeah I am leaving sunday morning for a 2400 mile round trip to Indiana so needless to say I need to figure this out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks all

My 2008 Tacoma has the factory tow package (with the 7 pin electrical connector). It was pre-wired with the switched 'hot' wire (charge wire) in position #4 (1 o'clock position when looking toward the connector from the back of the truck). Black wire I think. Best way to check is with a test light (or multimeter). You should not have any power to the connector pins when the ignition is off. With the ignition turned on if your truck is wired like mine, the #4 position pin will show power. Mine also has a 30A fuse in the box just behind the battery for the tow charge line.

Here's pic of the fusebox showing the charge fuse (circled in yellow)

[eamarquardt]

A fellow ran into me and damaged my 11 year old van beyond the point my insurance company would pay to repair it.

Soooooooo, I encouraged my wife to part with some of her money (it's all her money) and buy me a new Chevrolet Traverse with the tow package allowing me to tow 5,200#. YESSSSSSSS.

Anyway the wiring for the electric brakes was all present and accounted for but the owner's manual said that there were "wires" under the hood that needed to be connected to get the trailer brakes to function. Sooooooo, the day after I picked the car up I took it to the service department and asked how do I get these wires hooked up. Answer: pay 1/2 hour labor ($55) and bingo, the wires will be connected. WTF, you pay $30K for a new car, $525 for the factory tow package and THEN have to pay $55 to have "wires" connected. The service people didn't know what wires to connect together so they couldn't tell me what wires needed to be connected together so I could save myself the time and expense of letting them do it.

After several call to Chevrolet it became clear that there are no wires to connect.

There was another error in the owner's manual that stated that the wires for the electric brake controller are just wires taped under the dashboard. In fact the wires are all terminated on a connector. No one at GM (customer service hotline and executive offices) could tell me how to procure the cable that plugged into the factory installed connector. GM doesn't make it, doesn't stock it, nor do they sell it. I called the factory (but how I got the factory's number is classified and I'd have to kill anyone that I told how I got the number) and learned that they don't know where to get the cable either. The fellow I spoke with did go to an engineer at the factory who happened to have one and they sent it to me!! Nice of them. I'd found the cable on line but it's crazy that GM doesn't know where their customers can get the parts to make they car Chevrolet built function as intended. Go figure out why they went bankrupt. One fellow, at the executive offices told me that the Traverse isn't really suitable for towing. Then why is a tow package offered and the car rated to tow 5,200#?

There's a lot more to this story but I'll spare you all.

Cheers,

Gus

[eamarquardt]

Forgot to mention. There is a little button on the console that looks like a little trailer. If you push it in it changes the program for the transmission and the shifting parameters are changed so that the shifting is optimized for towing. When the button is pushed in the alternator output is also increased a bit to better charge the battery in the trailer. Apparently the factory engineers were thinking!

Cheers,

Gus

[kludge]

New question:

Has anyone had any trouble blowing 30A fuses when connecting a discharged trailer battery to the fully charged TV? Or does the #10 wire add enough resistance to prevent that?

[eamarquardt]

So…it might actually be practical to turn an automobile alternator with a windmill?

What if…

You procure, at a reasonable price, one of those 300 amp alternators from a dual battery diesel ambulance.
Mount it in the back of your truck, and connect it to an efficient blade drive system that will fold out into the 65 mph slipstream as you cruise down the interstate headed for the campground.

(I know…the wind is not free…but hey…it’s already THERE. And then there’s the added drag…just a little drag…)

Now THAT setup would charge the battery in the teardrop! It would also charge a reasonable bank of spares in the back of the truck.

Interesting…now I‘ve got something even better to think about.

Geez, Gus…next time, just say it won’t work.

I often harbor the illusion that people want to understand how the "world rotates" and "how things work". I'm constantly a little disappointed that all they want is the answer distilled down to the fewest words possible. Preferably, yes or no.

Your propeller driven alternator won't work as well as just running a wire from your vehicles alternator to you trailer battery.

Save yourself a lot of money and work. DON'T DO IT! Is that simple and clear enough?

However, an alternative that will work at least once is to build your wind generator. Mount it on a football helmet with the blades oriented like a helicopter. Be sure to use a football helmet with a chin strap. Preferably two. Build a harness to hold your battery next to your chest. Connect the alternator to the battery. Find the highest bridge you can. Jump off. The propeller will turn the alternator and charge your battery. This procedure is GUARANTEED to work the first time. No doubt about it! Will it work a second time. Doubtful at best. Especially with the first "operator".

Hey, but what the heck, the bridge is there!!!!!!!!!

In person I'm often "counseled" that I'm too blunt. I frequently, to express my self clearly and succinctly, say to my two sons (25 and 23): "DON'T "EXPLETIVE" DO IT! I often find that is not clear enough for them to understand my thoughts. I temper that, sometimes, on the forum. Go figure.

Cheers,

Gus

No no noooooo, Gus…you misunderstood. Sorry.

I always find your scientific explanations about why something works (or doesn’t) fascinating and enlightening. When I said “just say it won’t work”, I meant jokingly that you can save me a lot of sleepness nights thinking about the silly “what ifs” I come up with. When I dream up some wild and skewed idea, just tell me it won’t work so I can get on to something else. When you say something will “maybe” work, I get all…consumed.

Keep up the good work my friend…

I can only hope that Tumbleweed Tex didn't take my suggestion about building a helmet mounted wind turbine and jumping off a bridge seriously. I'm afraid it would, though, explain his sudden passing.

I'll miss him.

Gus

[absolutsnwbrdr]

As of this weekend, I'm officially charging while towing! Got a different device than Miriam's post, but it does the same. Bruce (bdosborn) had suggested it in another thread - the Yandina 100 Battery Combiner. Its completely waterproof and easy to hook up, however it doesn't come with wire or connectors. So I wasn't sure about was what connector to use from car to trailer. The 7-pin connectors are so bulky and I didn't want to convert my trailer over (or use a 4-7 adapter). So I bought some Anderson 45A powerpoles, and hacked up two 10GA jumper cables for the wiring. In the positive cable at the tow vehicle battery, I installed an inline Maxi Fuse holder with a 40A slow-blow (time delay) fuse. This protects the system from a short circuit, but still allows the batteries to connect.





A nice feature of the Yandina is that it has a remote wire. Hook it up to a SPDT switch and you can force the combiner on or off, or just let it do its thing automatically. The advantage, which Bruce pointed out, is that you are then able to force it to connect the batteries if your tow vehicle battery is dead, and you can jumpstart your vehicle. Alternately, you can force the combiner off so that there is no voltage present at the coupler connector if you are charging from shore power.