On my other trailers, I just hook up the break away battery once or twice a year to a battery charger when it's convenient to make sure their charged and I've never seen the voltage go under 11VDC, so there is not parasitic draw on them even when their mostly used on trucks with no charging circuit. I couldn't think of a down side to using the house battery other than possibly running the house battery down while camping, but once you hook back up to the truck, you'd be putting at least some charge back on it that should be enough to operate the brakes in the even of a disconnect. If you can isolate the two batteries in the charging circuit, like say from two separate shore power 120VAC chargers, it would be fine, but I don't want to hook them up in parallel in any way because the resistances of the two batteries will certainly be different, and will then cause the batteries to discharge each other slowly. so we know the brake away will work and the trailer is good for at least 1000 miles of braking without power to that battery.Not sure if it's correct, but I plan on running the break-away switch from the house battery on mine. and the small battery isn't enough so on those trailers we've wired in a group 24 battery. Our 2 largest trailers have electric over hyd brakes and need a power supply. so this is something we check every month or so. if the truck doesn't try and drag the trailer they RED TAG you and make you fix it on the spot. one of their tests is to pull the trailer connector, pull the brake away cable and have you try and pull ahead to see if the brakes come on. 95 or something like that at Wal-Mart and if you on the road and need one you can get it any where.Īll our work trailers can get inspected at the scales. we're getting almost 4 years on a battery that cost 19. something that we can check the level of. Instead we put a medium size motorcycle battery in a protected box on each trailer. and the replacement cost was something like 45 or 50 bucks as I remember. they usually don't last more than a couple of years with heavy use. We've taken all the dry cells and have thrown them away. I had to buy a new battery because the old one had been dead for so long. My son-in-law told me that the system didn't work when he tested it. I found out the easy way that my flatbed trailer does not have a charger. If the battery gets hot while it's charging, the charge rate is too high. Even 10 amps may be too much for these small batteries. In no case charge faster than about 10 amps. Use the lowest charge rate your charger has. You will need to charge this battery periodically with a regular 12 volt automotive battery charger. If there is nothing inside the box but a battery and some wires, then your battery will NOT charge when it's connected. (I'd still check it with a voltmeter to be sure it's wired correctly. If there is, then your battery should charge when it's plugged in. Open the box that contains your breakaway brake battery and see if there is a small unit inside that looks like a transformer. Some units have the good breakaway setup with a small charger and some don't. If you have a utility trailer, or something similar that does not use a battery for anything except the breakaway brakes, then the battery MAY OR MAY NOT charge when it is plugged into the truck. A 7-wire connector has a ground wire and a separate hot wire that always carries 12 volts. It will charge anytime it is plugged into your truck via a 7-wire connector. If you have an RV with a "house" battery, that battery is used to power the breakaway brakes. I had to get a professional semi driver who was there to turn it around. I won't even mention getting caught pulling into an area without a way out. I think the wires shorted when I tried to unplug it. Anyway, it was part way out, and the Prodigy started smoking!!! I went to disconnect it, but the harness was very tight on the controller (I was pushing the release). I hooked it up without mounting just to see where I could put it. My other problem was when I tried to install the Tekonsha Prodigy controller with the Dodge harness. The trailer has been sitting a lot, even though it's less than 1 year old. The breakaway didn't provide much braking, probably because the battery is very low. I got the trailer inspected today (even though I forgot the controller, it passed). Will the 7 pin connector charge the battery with the truck parked and off, or does the key need to be on? I was trying to figure out how the trailer brake battery gets charged. OK, so the battery is only for the breakaway, and has nothing to do with regular braking from the brake controller?
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