Marc wrote:
>I installed a second battery in my tow car. That's two batteries in the car.
>There is one battery in the Airstream. We drive the car around a lot when we
>are camping. The second battery in the car charges while we are sight
>seeing. When I get back to the camp site, I hook the wire up from the car to
>the trailer again. The fully charged battery in the car supplies electricity
>to the trailer. My primary battery in my car has a diode on it so that NO
>electricity flows out of it while the trailer is hooked up. Only the second
>battery supplies electricity to the trailer. That way the car will always
>start in the morning! With this three battery set up, we seems to be able to
>camp indefinitely WITHOUT any electrical hook-ups.
I had the same setup in my old camper van and will probably add a second
battery to my new puller. As you say this is quite adequate for travelling
with the Airstream. But if you want to settle in for a while you need to
have more firepower in the trailer.
I'm a picky type of guy. I have my heart set on putting four flexible 32
watt solar panels on top. That's a thousand dollars. Add the controller
and state of the art batts and you've got a chunk of change. I'm just
breaking the package into purchase sized pieces.
There is one other advantage to vehicular charging of trailer batts. You
can do it in the rain or after the sun is down to augment the solar panels.
So far this thread has yielded:
1. Use #6 wire on the long pigtail
2. Find a way to increase idle speed.while charging
3. Move forward Quickly to the voltage regulator and solar panels.
Thanks to all for explaining why it won't work well.
Bob
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