Recommendation For Maintaining Battery Charge On Trailer When Disconnected From Tow Vehicle  

I have read many of the posts Q and As about charging / maintaining charge to House batteries or whatever batterys are in/on a trailer of whatever type. I see lots of information about using the battery isolator kit. I understand the need for that and it seems to be a good answer to keep from discharging the VEHICLE battery. BUT, My question has to due with.....What happens if I have say, 2 deep cycle batteries in my R/V that I use when camping off grid. They start out with a full charge. While driving to the campsite the charge is maintained by the trailer wiring harness connection that has a 12 volt power supply pin with or without part # TR118665. When I get to the campsite and the power supply is disconnected from the vehicle by whatever means , I begin to drain the R/V batteries as I use the various many12 volt accessories in the trailer. At some point I have VERY LOW or dead batteries. QUESTION:.................. Dont I need to be concerned, OR Isnt there an issue presented when you connect back to the VEHICLE battery OR charging system? Doesnt this condition overload the ALTERNATOR causing it to run continuously for longer periods then it is designed for and thereby OVERHEAT? Every time I have ever installed a new alternator I seem to remember a note or instructions that said WARNING, make sure battery is FULLY CHARGED before connecting. Is there not a similar risk to connecting to dead R/V batteries? Is there a FAQs that addresses this issue that I missed? Or is it KNOWN that if you have a commercially manufactured R/V vs. Some trailer you are home building, That the Commercial R/V has some sort of Smart Charge Controller built into the electrical system that somehow detects and corrects for issues of constant charge current flow from the Tow vehicle power supply connection? I know some places have shore power that you would use while at the site to either keep your house batteries charged or maybe it just BYPASSES them through the converter or is it inverter?. But many times you are OFF GRID and maybe dont have a generator or solar panel hookup to do/keep batteries up to full charge..... Can one of your EXPERTS please address this question!!!!!! Thank you. There is also the question of it being a bad practice to have Deep cycle and Lead acid type batteries connected in any way. Is this something you could address?

asked by: Trailer M

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