Charging battery

[DanZaw]

There's a lot of layers to your question... but to your main question of if plugging in will give you enough power to operate the electric winch with a flat battery... maybe. I don't know how many amps your converter can generate and how much the winch draws. If your converter can produce enough amps, continuously, for the duration of the lift, it may work. Test it at home first.

There's a whole side discussion on battery care that I will leave to the battery folks.

Does your electric winch have a manual override crank for just such occasions? It may take a lot of cranking, but I would think it might have one, maybe not.

Best of luck.

I've been a pup camper owner and user for many years. I've never seen any pups that have an electric winch without a manual

Thank you! When I called the dealer they said there was no way to manually lift it. It’s a 2021 rockwood 1940f, fwiw.

There is a manual crank system on your Rockwood. If you look on top of your winch cover, not where the motor is but to the right where the cable spool is, there is a plastic cap on it about the size of a silver dollar. Pop it off. You'll see grease under it but under that layer of grease is a 7/16th" hex bolt head welded on top of the worm gear. Use a 7/16th" socket on a ratchet to manually lift or lower the top. Note however it's the worst manual system I've ever seen and it will take more than an hour to go either up or down.

 

[DanZaw]

Look in the manual, lots of times the dealers dont know much about what there selling. I thought there was always a manual bypass.

There is.

 

[DanZaw]

See how the red are attached to the left screw terminal? The black attach to the right (negative) screw terminal. Take the nut off of the terminal, put the ring terminals on the post, and screw it on. Just a word of caution working with batteries... never ever short (connect) the red and black terminals. These batteries can dump a lot of current and hurt you pretty bad.

Your advise, although given with good intention, is flawed. It's never right or left, it's positive and negative. Someone could have turned the battery around. Hey here's a point to remember, the positive battery post is ALWAYS the larger in diameter that the negative.

 

[Robert O'Dea]

I am brand new to popup camping and am finding the learning curve really steep. Just went out camping for the weekend and am at a site without power. I did not realize the power winch would not work. Dealer says I needed to charge the battery first and leave it plugged in at home for a few days before any trip. News to me! Would have been nice to know this before going out as now we are camperless.

My question is - if I stay at a site with power, do I still need to keep the camper plugged in for a few days beforehand or will the site power get the camper up and running right away?

Thanks!

 

[Robert O'Dea]

Though I didn't read every entry on this thread to see if someone else suggested this but I would think that you could use the battery from your tow vehicle to "jump" the camper battery and get the winch to work and leave connected for an hour or so with the tow vehicle running to put a fair charge on the camper battery.

Anybody in agreement on this?

 

[davido]

Since youre keeping the camper away from home, just charge the battery and unhook it before storage. It will be fine the next time you need to use it. If you leave it hooked up, it will be dead every time and the battery will quickly go bad.

This isn't quite correct.

Lead acid batteries self-discharge about 4% per week. So in a month, that's a little over 15%. I've heard estimates from 10% to 15% per month, depending on the website or article.

Lead acid batteries suffer shorter lifespans if they are not kept fully charged. Since they are self-discharging, the only way to keep it 100% fully charged is to keep it on a maintenance charger (and to monitor it occasionally to assure the fluid is topped off). Leaving it for a month means it will begin to degrade, and its typical 4-6 year lifespan may be reduced to 2-4 or 3-5.

I agree it will be dead if you leave it hooked up, IF there are parasitic loads such as smoke detector, CO/Propane detector, and so on. If it's hooked up to a fully open circuit with absolutely zero load, then leaving it hooked up isn't any worse than just leaving it. But most modern trailers do have some parasitic loads: CO/Propane detector, smoke detector, diodes in the converter, the USB charger that got left plugged into the cig adapter, and so on.

 

[Mike_the_Newbie]

Look in the manual, lots of times the dealers dont know much about what there selling. I thought there was always a manual bypass.

Most of the electric lifts have manual bypass, but a lot of them are buried under the cover and you have to disassemble the thing to get to it

 

[fronsm]

In my experience, plugging your camper into the trailer connection on your tow vehicle will supply the required 12 volts to run most equipment.

Did you try with the trailer still plugged into your tow vehicle?

I am having the same problem right now, but I'm at home. I have it plugged into the car but it is not working. I'm going to plug in the shoreline and see if that will work.

 

[Sjm9911]

The car isnt really set up to charge the battery. Use the plug or get a real charger.

 

[Karey]

I was a Newbie and researched and learned a ton. Our first camp trip this summer took the battery too low. I now have a battery brand just like yours. Being that yours was basically disconnected, it's probably good. After my frustration with the little we did that first trip (it was Colorado cold mornings and running the furnace) I got another battery. Your box looks like it can hold a second battery. I had to learn about parallel vs in series for battery set up of the two batteries. Then I also got a Renogy 100W solar suitcase. The 2 batteries and the solar charging works so well for keeping the batteries charged. Since then we've had several camp trips much longer and the new set up is perfect! Have fun learning a ton. Each trip brought up new things I wanted to learn about. I'm keeping this post simple, (I could tell you lots more of what I've learned!) addressing your first basic steps I learned for success. I can plug our trailer in at home tho, so you will need to charge your batteries separate at home before each trip. And now with winter coming you need to plug in and charge your batteries at least once a month, is what I've read and been told.

 

[Karey]

I was a Newbie and researched and learned a ton.

Also ... as reading so much, people talk of getting Golf Cart batteries or the higher numbered batteries. I've stuck with what yours is: a 24series battery (and now my 2 of them). I have to be able to carry the things!!! and 24 is the max I can carry (around 45 pounds).

 

[Hilldweller]

Also ... as reading so much, people talk of getting Golf Cart batteries or the higher numbered batteries. I've stuck with what yours is: a 24series battery (and now my 2 of them). I have to be able to carry the things!!! and 24 is the max I can carry (around 45 pounds).

My 100 ah LiFePo4 battery weighs a mere 31 pounds...

 

[Karey]

My 100 ah LiFePo4 battery weighs a mere 31 pounds...

We live in the Colorado mountains and I read that lithium isn't best for cold climates.

 

[Hilldweller]

We live in the Colorado mountains and I read that lithium isn't best for cold climates.

New technology. Self-heating these days.

https://www.renogy.com/12v-100ah-smart-lithium-iron-phosphate-battery-w-self-heating-function/

https://battlebornbatteries.com/product/100ah-12v-lifepo4-heated-battery-kit/