Solar Power and Battery Questions
 

Well, I had another thread about my battery issue and believe that I have determined that the battery indeed needs to be replaced. I went to pick up my trailer today from storage and bring to home to get it ready for a camping trip. I found out that the battery was so dead I almost couldn't get the electric jack to raise the hitch enough to get hooked up. When I got home I measured the battery with a volt meter and it showed 12.02vdc, and also there was almost not enough power to raise the top as well. Another sign was my brake controller never showed a connection to trailer for the entire 8 mile ride home, as before the battery would usually charge up enough after about a mile or so and have enough juice to get the brake controller show up as having a connection again and work.

Anyways, right now I have shore power connected to the trailer and will let it charge over night to see if it gains a full charge again. If it does I will most likely disconnect it and let it sit for a few hours and then check the voltage to see how low it drops as another test. So I will update tomorrow on the results.

One thing that concerns me is I have a solar panel mounted on the trailer but uncertain that it is working since when I left the trailer in storage last time it was showing a full charge on the battery. And I believe if I had a charged battery the solar panel should keep a trickle charge to maintain the battery correct? I was wondering if anyone knows how I could easily determine or check if the solar panel is actually supplying voltage to charge the battery. I will be trying to trace down the lines tomorrow for myself to try and find where it ties into the system. I have taken some pictures of the power meter's and what I believe is called the power converter which is mounted underneath the stove and is found by pulling out the drawer underneath the stove. It looks like there is only power supplied to the power converter and then there is a Red and White wire and ground coming out of the power converter. I haven't traced where they go to yet though, tomorrow.

My main concern is I would like to be able to ensure that I have power being supplied to my battery and keeping it maintained with a trickle charge during storage. Especially if I am going to be buying a new battery I don't want to have to worry about having it drained all the time, which I think causes a battery to become weak and could result in a early failure of a battery from what I have read and understood from other discussions correct?

Kind of long winded question but I always figure more details help in solving problems. Thanks for any responses in advance, everyone's help on this website is appreciated!

Edit: forgot that I should add this is for a 1999 Classic 29B HiLo

Additional pics
 

A few more pictures since the first thread would only let me load 4 pictures?

This sounds to me like there is something amiss in the wiring to the 7-pin plug on your tow vehicle. I feel you should get an indication of trailer brakes as soon as you have the trailer plugged in to the tow vehicle plug if the TV ignition is on. Have you checked to see if you have brake lights working on the trailer and if the running and tail lights work if the TV lights are on? (They should be.) And, if you are connected to the TV and the engine is running, the trailer battery should be receiving a charge (you should be able to measure close to 14V across the battery terminals if it's charging.

So, I'm betting there's possibly a bad connection to the ground pin in the 7-pin plug. That would tend to kill everything.

- Jack

There should be no interaction between the trailer battery and the brake controller. The breakaway switch depends on the battery to activate the brakes, but it is isolated from the controller unless activated. You have a wiring problem somewhere. Starting with the TV plug, check it for proper connections and output. If all is well move to the trailer cord and check it. Corroded contacts, loose connections and bad grounding can cause strange happenings.

I agree with the other 2 posts, you have a wiring or plug problem on either the TV or trailer, which would be the reason for no brake controller or no charging. I assume that your storage is outside? If it is inside the solar panel won't work. If you have a radio with presets the keep alive power to maintain the radio, also the propane leak detector draws power, they could use more than the small solar panel output, leaving no power to maintain the battery.

You didn't state the size of the solar panel?

Here is a handy tester. It will cut your troubleshooting time.

Ultra-Tow 7- and 4-Way Circuit Tester, Model# DBP7+4 | Wiring Kits | Northern Tool + Equipment

Jack, yeah I had checked all the trailer lights worked as normal prior to leaving the storage facility, that is one of those checks that I do each time I get ready to leave anywhere as a safety caution. I am pretty sure my voltages out of my TV are good as I had check them before but I will verify again today and post back.

"There should be no interaction between the trailer battery and the brake controller"

Rich and PopRich, thanks for reply's. Yeah it is kind of weird because in another tread I had posted about my battery issue that I had found out after driving for about a mile or so, it seemed as if my battery gained enough charge from the TV that it would all of a sudden allow the brake controller to start showing up as if it was reconnected. That is why I am assuming the battery plays a part in the brake controller operation.

I am not sure what size solar panel I have, will have to check out, but it is what came standard with the 1999 Classic 29B Hilo. And yes I understand that if it is stored inside there would be no solar power. I have outside storage. I was wanting to find out where the solar ties into keeping a charge on the battery?

Thanks and will post back some findings later in the day after checking out a little further. I have had it connected to shore power at the house overnight so will find out soon.

Thanks for the link to the tester as well, but I will use my fluke meter.

Testing
 

Yesterday after getting HiLo home from storage had 12.02Vdc on the battery.

Here are the results of different measurements made today.

13.18vdc on battery after charging all night on shore power.
12.11vdc on TV connection between battery and ground connection with ignition ON.
13.85vdc on TV connection between battery and ground connection with TV running.
Then connected the trailer power cord to the TV and measured with no shore power.
12.93vdc on battery with TV running.

Also pressed the brakes and the brake controller shows connection and working as normal. Another thing is on the TV 7-pin connector there is a pin labeled for the brake controller at the 6 o'clock position. It seems that the battery does play a part in the electric brake controller operation.

Now for the solar panel. My main concern once again is being able to maintain the battery during storage without it going dead and prematurely damaging a new battery. I think the wires are coming down through the ceiling through the wrapped wires in the bathroom next to the vent line. I'm just not sure. I pulled the Solar Charging System Panel on the side of the refrig and took some measurements. On the back of the board it looks like it showed connections for PV+ and PV- and B+ and B- It was hard to tell if they were plus and minus as I would almost need a magnifying glass to tell, but that's what they looked like to me, and think it would be understood as Photovoltaic Positive and Negative and the other's would be for Battery Positive and Negative?

Here is what I measured.
12.43vdc between PV+ and PV-
12.18vdc between B+ and B-

Hopefully this will help someone out that might have a little more knowledge than I currently have. I attached some pictures of the back of the Solar charging system panel. On the front it shows a red LED light up for Solar and also a red LED light up for the level of power between 12.5 and 14. This is really the only indication I can see where it shows the solar panel is ON. I am just not sure where this ties into put the charge on the battery?

Thanks again for any responses. I am hoping this may help someone else here in the future.

1999 Classic 29B HiLo
Thanks

First the brake controller will work with no battery in the trailer, unless you have some kind of weird wiring.
Next with the trailer plugged into the tow vehicle and running, the voltage at the trailer battery should be almost the same as the voltage at the TV battery over 13 volts, there will be some drop do to wire resistance, if it's not over 13 volts the trailer battery will not charge, so there is a bad connection some where.
Solar panel voltage going into the solar regulator should be around 15 to 20 volts, solar panel may be bad or there is a bad wire connection, and yes the wires from the solar panel do run down thru the cloth covered wire bundle.
Depending on the solar regulator it may pull the voltage down but on battery side it should be over 13 volts for charging.
I based the solar panel information on my 100 watt panel. My panel open circuit voltage is 17 volts. Your panel is probably 30 watts or less, I think that was the Hi-Lo largest option. So there may be some difference.

Thanks PopRichie,
One question is where would the solar regulator be possibly located? I had pulled the refrig back access cover and did not notice anything in there that looks like a solar regulator as I have read in other posts.

I am pretty sure that my TV is ok, and the problem lies in the trailer, just having a hard time tracing where a bad connection would be located in the trailer. I have pulled and cleaned the battery connections and checked out the power cord connections and look fine.

Thanks again.

Here is a trailer wiring diagram,that the trailer has no battery.
Trailer Wiring Diagrams | etrailer.com

Can't help with where your solar regulator is as mine is inside the fridge outside access. It is the original Hi-Lo installed 10 amp regulator which is good for my 100 watt, 5 amp output solar panel. I have no inside panel, they went cheap on TowLites. I bought a digital volt, amp meter for it but haven't got it installed yet.

Your bad charging connection has to be from the trailer plug to the battery, Do you have the battery pull out tray on the side? This would make the wires longer but still should go from plug to battery with probably a terminal block in between. The brake wire is similar plug to terminal block and then to brake wire all blue. Both may have a breaker in line near the terminal block.

So today I traced the cable from the trailer to where it mounts to a terminal block which is mounted on the frame probably right below where the fresh water tank fill spout is located. The breakaway switch also ties into this terminal block at this point also. It looks as if there is one black wire going from the terminal block back to the battery box and if I remember it was either going to the solenoid on the hydraulic pump or possibly to a switch mounted on the battery box side wall. (just checked and the positive battery connection goes to the solenoid on hydraulic pump and the negative is mounted to ground on bottom mount of pump) I will try to get a little more traced on this possibly tomorrow. The battery and pump is located in side access box, but doesn't pull out. I will attach a picture for reference.

Also if I remember correctly I think I remember following the blue wire back to the brakes as well. I don't remember seeing any breakers near this terminal block though.

Thanks for your help on this PopRichie it is appreciated, as well as the rest of you that have helped.

I see your problem in tracing wires, hard to get at. Be sure to clean the contacts in the trailer plug, they may look ok but may fail to make contact when plugged in. I have had to clean the contacts a couple times already on my 2209, they looked ok but did not work, I sprayed a lot of WD40 on each then plugged in several times, then I blew the excess off both with compressed air, worked great. WD40 is not a contact cleaner but the flushing and repeated plugging cleaned the contacts. The trailer plug on the 95 comes apart and each contact can be cleaned, newer trailers the plug is molded on and can't be taken apart. Point is that probing with a meter probe will make contact but the wide flat contacts in the plug may not. The factory crimped on terminals in side the trailer from the plug are poorly done and the wire often corrodes inside the crimp and doesn't make contact. I had a lot of problems with the 95, finally I soldered every wire terminal in the battery box, the corrode ones I cut off and solder new terminals on, end of wire problems. Well good luck, hope you find the problem.

The saga continues
 

Well, to continue with this issue. I had purchased a new cable to replace from my TV connection to the terminal block mounted on the trailer frame to hopefully fix the problem of my brake controller not showing a connection. Well I changed it out today in the 109 deg temp here in AZ and still no solution, the brake controller showed connection first time I started the vehicle up but then I shut it off to start putting all the trailer covers back in place and when I checked it again it now shows no connection. I pulled the covers back off and double checked all the connections were still good and even verified the battery power at terminal block was good at 13+Vdc. I am going to attach a few pictures of the before and after cable connections, the old cable did have a pinch in it and I thought great that should be the problem but no luck. I will add more explanation in second post with a few more pictures for reference.

Second part of saga
 

So I drew up a block diagram of the connections and labeled them so as to explain where they were going from that point, hopefully this will help. I only had the option of making it in MS paint so not real professional but will do.

So when I disconnected the original cable to the terminal block, I had no power and even disconnected the trailer battery completely, but I still had power at the terminal block on pin 5, which is the Black wire from TV input, on the output side it had a Red and Blue wire going out of pin 5. I traced the Red wire which goes to the converter. The blue wire goes to behind the frig access panel and ties into a fuse and from the fuse to a terminal block on the back of the frig labeled as 12v heater connection, from that terminal block it goes up to the side of frig panel which looks like it might be going to the solar panel meter on the side of the frig inside the trailer, unable to get up into that small compartment to verify.

So since I could not get a connection on the brake controller, I started inspecting the ground points. From the TV cable the white wire mounts to a ground stud next to the terminal block on the frame. There was also another white wire mounted to this ground stud, I traced it and it goes to the brake magnets, I believe, I traced it back to a connection point at the back of the tire hubs anyways?

Here is a couple of my thoughts, would it be possible that there is a bad magnet on the brakes causing the ground connection to be lost? Or a intermittent wire break somewhere in the brake connections wiring? Anyone have a simple way of verifying these? Thanks in advance.

Here's the pictures for reference

A easy test to see if the brake magnets are working is to hold a compass next to the wheel and have someone in the tv apply the brakes. The magnetism will cause the compass needle to dance around.

Bob

This may sound like a dumb question, but you do know that there is no 12 volt voltage to the brakes from the brake controller unless some one is holding the lever on full? When you push the brake peddle the voltage going to the trailer brakes can be as low as 1 volt or less depending on the brake controller setting. What brand controller do you have?

Thanks bob, that sounds like an easy test.

Yes poprichie I realize there is no voltage without the brakes engaged. My thought was, is there a loose ground connection tied into the magnets. My brake controller is a Prodigy P2. It is almost like an intermittent issue, sometimes it works fine.

This is something that I didn't know awhile back, that you can damage the Prodigy if you pull the cable out on the brake away switch with the controller plugged into the trailer. I then read the instructions and it does say that.
You may have a bad connection to the Prodigy. To test the trailer brake wiring and magnets, pull the emergency break away switch cable, with the trailer unplugged from the tow vehicle, try to pull the trailer, as this will apply a full 12 volts to the brake magnets. If all 4 wheels slide or nearly slide the trailer brakes are ok. replace the break away plug into the switch as soon as possible, it left on the magnets will over heat.

That sounds like another easy test to try also, thanks poprichie. Also I installed the prodigy and I have not ever pulled the break away switch on the trailer with the cable connected to TV since I have owned it, but its nice to know that little tid bit of information for the future.

In PA we have to have our trailers inspected annually, and the break away switch is one of the things they check and they do it just as I described.

I agree with inspecting the break away switch annually, I just had the hubs repacked at camping world and they checked all that out then about 2 months ago, I just dropped off the trailer for service, so it wasn't still connected to my TV while they did the work also.

I went out just now to verify the voltage at the terminal block on trailer frame at pin 6 which is the electric brake connection. Had my son press brake pedal and had between 0.9vdc to approx. 1.7vdc while he was pressing and releasing the brake pedal in truck. Then had him press the manual over ride lever on the prodigy and had approx 7.2vdc at same location on terminal block. I will do the break away test as soon as my wife can help me real soon.

My terminal block is different than yours it only has 4 connections on it. Yes, with the Prodigy lever pushed over the reading you get at the brake blue wire terminal should read within 1 volt of what you have the Prodigy set at. I said 12 volts but that is only with the Prodigy turned full up. The Prodigy will increase the voltage when you are braking up to your max setting. You may also have a boost set, I don't my trailer is lighter than yours and if I set to boost 1, I get very abrupt stops.

follow up
 

I did a test of pulling the break away switch with the trailer unplugged and then tried to pull it to see if the wheels were locked up. It looks like only my front left (driver's side) locked up and the other 3 would still turn. I could definitely feel them engaged as it took a lot of power to get it pulled slightly. Also I tried to check it a few times since it was my 8yr old son helping me watch the wheels and explaining what to look for.

However, a couple of times it felt as if when I pulled the pin out none of the brakes were engaged, and I was able to pull away very easily without the added drag noticed when the brakes were engaged before, and I would put the pin back in place and pull it out again and then it would engage the brakes. Not sure if this is a sign of the break away switch going bad?

One thing I did also was verify that my truck would show a connection on the brake controller fine while hooking up to another trailer. I went to drop off my trailer and was able to hookup to another guys trailer there to test it out. I plugged into his trailer and disconnected about 5 or 6 times and each time the brake controller in my truck showed up connection fine. I then tried to hook back up to my trailer and no connection. So I feel pretty confident that the issue lies further back on the trailer and leaning towards something in the brake wiring, magnets, or break away switch itself. Any other suggestions is much appreciated.

On a side note, it was a little irritating when I had stopped in camping world today to pick up a couple of filters for the AC unit, the guy helping me at service counter said he remembered me since I was a frequent customer, I had asked if they could hook up their tester to verify my TV connection is good and they told me it would be a minimum charge of at least $30. Ok I guess I will check it myself :confused:

I think you have listed about everything, I will say that the wire connections under the trailer to the magnets get corroded and don't work, I always solder mine. When you disconnect the magnet wires, use your ohm meter to check them, the ohm reading for Dexter magnets should be 10 and 12 inch brake magnets resistance should be 3.2-3.5 Ohms.
If out of range they need replaced.
https://www.etrailer.com/question-17395.html

Thanks again poprichie. That is some good information from the link on testing the magnets. When I was under the trailer yesterday I did notice that it was wire nuts used to connect the magnets to the rest of the system, so there might be an issue like your suggesting with the connections to the magnets. I had to take the trailer back to storage lot yesterday, and getting ready to start the work week, so might be a week or so before I am able to get back to testing the next steps. I will update once I either find the issue or not. Thanks again for the assistance it is much appreciated.

fixed
 

Well the problem is fixed finally and the brake controller is now showing good connection. The final fix was a combination of replacing the entire wiring system from the terminal block on the trailer frame all the way back to the brake magnet connections. Also one magnet was replaced as it was questionable. One thing that I have found out through this whole process is that the previous owner was not really up to par on preventative maintenance for the trailer. One example is I had asked him when was the last time he had the bearings repacked?, his reply was "I have never done the bearings" this is a 13 yr old trailer, what :eek:, so of course that was one of the first things I completed. So at least now I feel a little more comfortable towing this trailer around. Thanks poprichie and all the rest for your responses along the way.