Charging with the Truck while parked??

[DoublTrouble]

Following along...
When connecting a generator, is there a difference between the street side connection vs the one on the front?

[handn]

Originally Posted by DJW

Thanks all. Please know we'll be respectful of the folks around us in the camp. We're going to be part of an AS group, some of which will be running generators during the day to re-charge. The plan is , if we need to do anything, to run the truck at the same time as others run their generators. I think our Tundra makes about as much noise as a Honda E2000. Maybe we won't need it at all.

Don

Bring a long cord and plug into a friends' generator. A 2000 watt generator will easily run two Airstream converters. An hour of charging will put a lot of juice in your battery. Charging by plugging into your truck is SLOW the charging power cord is tiny and at idle your trucks alternator doesn't put out many amps.
If you don't run your furnace, you will probably last three days without charging if your batteries are in good shape.
If you like to boondock you will end up with solar and a generator. It makes life much easier.

[dayner]

FYI-Tow w/Ford F250 & use factory installed 25 amp (easily charges 2 batteries) upfitter switch for aux battery charging and carry spare battery in bed charged full time. If you do use the available factory upfitter switch (either the 10, 15 or 25 amp citcuit) be sure to properly size wire for both ampacity and to minimize voltage drop for the distance you run to the trailer or aux batteries, and proper automotive wire type based on heat around engine, exhaust, etc

[JimGolden]

Just buy a Honda EU2000i generator and never worry again. I did It's great!

See ya on the road,

[dayner]

BTW the Ford battery charge circuit in the trailer connector is a 30 amp circuit, ample for trailer battery charging

[Airjeep]

Two years ago we bought our first TT, an EB 27'. The batteries would not last the night without charging. The 40 amp wire appeared to be hot all the time. To prevent discharging the TV battery, I installed a battery isolator in our trailer, made by Samlex. It only allows the circuit to be completed when the TV charging circuit is about 13.3 v IIRC for a certain time. If it drops below a certain voltage for ? time it isolates the TV from the TT until the voltage is above the threshold as above.

We did some boon docking for several days to 2 weeks this past winter leaving the TV connected. If the batteries ran down over night, I could use the Jeep GC's remote start to charge the TT without leaving the trailer! The Jeep will run for 10 minutes on remote start before shutting down and only two remote starts allowed without going to the TV.

Had a 300w inverter that ran the batteries down. Put 2 new batteries in and disconnected the inverter. After we finally had shore power for a couple of days to charge the batteries, we had no problems boon docking for the next 6 weeks of our trip keeping the batteries charged.

To replace the 300w inverter, bought a couple of 70 aux inverters from Walmart for the television and to charge our computers.

Hope this helps, John

[Airjeep]

A couple of things that weren't mentioned in my previous post.

The Samlex isolator will charge the TV battery if you have solar or shore powerand the TT battery voltage is above the threshold level.

If you have a MOHO with an aux battery, it can be wired to boost the main if it is too low to start the MOHO. Think it is good for about 400 amp load when boosting.

Cheers, John

[JCWDCW]

A typical house battery is about 100 amp-hours. Your truck if you are lucky can maybe put out 10 amps. Even if you get 13 volts at the house battery from your truck, you will likely only get about 5 amps of charging due to the small lines from the truck to the trailer. That means you need to run the truck 20 hours to recharge the battery from dead at 12.4 volts. Just not practical...been there ..tried that! Solar panel is the best solution if you do a lot of hobo camping.
JCW

[Bob4x4]

Originally Posted by avionstream

Should not drain the TV batterys on any pickup I've had. Chevy, dodge and ford van.

There is no isolation on the Dodge,but with the dual Batts on the diesel it takes a lot take them down to a no crank conditon

[Wayne Clamp]

All this considered, allowing my wife's total input, she decided "roughing it" boon docking, etc has three minimal required elements, !., water, 2. sewer, 3 electricity: thus the Honda EU7000is fit our needs, and is quiet as well.

[dayner]

We use a Honda 6500 (prior version of your 7000) works extremely well and is very quiet and can run everything in the trailer at once, love it, some folks say it's too big, but LOL, thats their problem not mine...when you need power, size matters...betting you are gonna love the ,7000 it rocks!