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Old 12-09-2020, 04:12 PM   #1
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Battery compartment????

Recently bought and refurbished a 8.5 ssrb truck camper, I believe it's early 80's. I'm down to making appliances work and started with replacing all lights with leds and thought let me throw in a battery and test them, well I can't find any location for that.
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Old 12-09-2020, 05:47 PM   #2
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Welcome TheHunter!

Wow, your truck camper looks great in the pic.

I can't help on the battery location but we have another member rebuilding his truck camper right now that may know. See his post here https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...ild-19616.html

Kxracer704 just rebuilt his battery compartment. He did some serious upgrades on the battery system, but he found a place to put them that I think may have been where Sunline had it. This post of his shows his new power system https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...tml#post154260

Hope this helps

John
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Old 12-09-2020, 05:55 PM   #3
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Welcome TheHunter!

Wow, your truck camper looks great in the pic.

I can't help on the battery location but we have another member rebuilding his truck camper right now that may know. See his post here https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...ild-19616.html

Kxracer704 just rebuilt his battery compartment. He did some serious upgrades on the battery system, but he found a place to put them that I think may have been where Sunline had it. This post of his shows his new power system https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...tml#post154260

Hope this helps

John
Yeah was was pretty dang good outside but had a few leaks that wasn't taken care of so had to repair some walls and ceiling and that turned into a redo all inside kinda thing LoL.
I appreciate the posts and I'll have a look. Surely it had batteries somewhere unless it pulled off the truck battery I don't know
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Old 12-10-2020, 07:11 AM   #4
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If you connect to your truck battery you will need some type of battery isolator along with the camper battery. I'm not real familiar with a truck camper but if it has a power cord it will lead to a power supply some where that will supply power to the outlets and 12 volts for the lights. Connected to that should be a (generally) red #10 wire that will lead to the battery location.
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Old 12-10-2020, 08:22 AM   #5
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So on the back of the inverter(12V side) is a short red wire, cut and connected to a black that runs to the 7 way plug that obviously connects to the truck, so my assumption is that is the power source for the 12 volt system (the truck). What your alluding to with the isolator is a great idea but I wanna avoid truck power all together so hopefully my assumption is correct and I can just hook that black wire to a battery along with a ground and be up and running off battery power
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Old 12-10-2020, 11:35 AM   #6
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Yeah that seem likely. If you have a converter you are smiling yes the battery can be connected directly to the converter so if you add a isolator to the truck the truck will then charge the camper battery also once the key is switched off the path back to the camp is disconnected so that it won't back feed and drain the truck battery. You will need to retain the connection to the 7 pin and just add a connection to the camper battery where ever you may put that.
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Old 12-10-2020, 11:49 AM   #7
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Yeah that seem likely. If you have a converter you are smiling yes the battery can be connected directly to the converter so if you add a isolator to the truck the truck will then charge the camper battery also once the key is switched off the path back to the camp is disconnected so that it won't back feed and drain the truck battery. You will need to retain the connection to the 7 pin and just add a connection to the camper battery where ever you may put that.
When you say isolator are you meaning a on/off switch or something like a one way type diode
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Old 12-10-2020, 02:43 PM   #8
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The very simplest one is unplug the 7 pin. If you want automatic I personally prefer the relay type over a diode (they cheat you out of about .7 volts) super simple turns on when the truck is running goes off with the key. They look just like an old time starter relay but they are continuous duty, a starter relay will burn out the same day.
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Old 12-10-2020, 03:44 PM   #9
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The very simplest one is unplug the 7 pin. If you want automatic I personally prefer the relay type over a diode (they cheat you out of about .7 volts) super simple turns on when the truck is running goes off with the key. They look just like an old time starter relay but they are continuous duty, a starter relay will burn out the same day.
Awesome Thanks!
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Old 12-12-2020, 07:32 AM   #10
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Hi,

On the camper isolator to the truck, not sure what brand truck you have.

Ford normally installs a relay in the truck that goes on and off with the ignition.

GM used to have the 7 wire plug charge wire hot all the time.

Some Toyotas have the relay in the truck.

Since truck makers change what they do a lot..., just check your 7 wire outlet in the truck between the charge pin and DC ground, if the charge wire pin is dead or has 12 volts on it when the truck is off. Then you know for sure.

A few other things to mention, I'm not sure what Sunline did with your older truck camper and the battery. The heads up is, if you are adding a lead acid battery, (very common thing to do) they create hydrogen gas when charged. Either from the truck charging circuit or an onboard power converter. With a battery inside the camper, the gases need to be vented outside. There should be a fresh air inlet and an outside vent near the battery compartment. If Sunline had one, then great. If not, the vents are not hard to add. There is a lot of aftermarket hose, covers and vent grills just for this that does not cost that much to do. If you need more, ask away.

Did your camper come with a power converter? If it is original, the older converters were not the greatest battery chargers. They would charge the battery but not go into a float mode once the battery reached 100% state of charge. By doing that, they ended up boiling out the battery, most times to a premature death. You can check the voltage on your current one. When the system is charging, at the battery the voltage it would read 13.65 volts DC approximately as standard charge. When the system fully recharged the battery after a day or so, then it would drop down into the 13.25 volts area into a float mode. It should also reduce the amperage to a trickle in float mode, but you need an amp meter to check that. Worst case, they sell a lot of really good power converters now if you need to upgrade. 3 stage charging along with a desulfate mode. I myself really like the Progressive Dynamics power converter brand. Still made in the USA. I had to upgrade my original 2004 converter as it had other issues.

Hope this helps.

John
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Old 12-12-2020, 08:18 AM   #11
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For general camping the old converters are fine, they are lousy chargers very poorly regulated for that reason once the camper is not camping do not leave it plugged in. A cheap battery maintainer is all you would need for long time storage.
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Old 12-12-2020, 05:32 PM   #12
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Quote:
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Hi,

On the camper isolator to the truck, not sure what brand truck you have.

Ford normally installs a relay in the truck that goes on and off with the ignition.

GM used to have the 7 wire plug charge wire hot all the time.

Some Toyotas have the relay in the truck.

Since truck makers change what they do a lot..., just check your 7 wire outlet in the truck between the charge pin and DC ground, if the charge wire pin is dead or has 12 volts on it when the truck is off. Then you know for sure.

A few other things to mention, I'm not sure what Sunline did with your older truck camper and the battery. The heads up is, if you are adding a lead acid battery, (very common thing to do) they create hydrogen gas when charged. Either from the truck charging circuit or an onboard power converter. With a battery inside the camper, the gases need to be vented outside. There should be a fresh air inlet and an outside vent near the battery compartment. If Sunline had one, then great. If not, the vents are not hard to add. There is a lot of aftermarket hose, covers and vent grills just for this that does not cost that much to do. If you need more, ask away.

Did your camper come with a power converter? If it is original, the older converters were not the greatest battery chargers. They would charge the battery but not go into a float mode once the battery reached 100% state of charge. By doing that, they ended up boiling out the battery, most times to a premature death. You can check the voltage on your current one. When the system is charging, at the battery the voltage it would read 13.65 volts DC approximately as standard charge. When the system fully recharged the battery after a day or so, then it would drop down into the 13.25 volts area into a float mode. It should also reduce the amperage to a trickle in float mode, but you need an amp meter to check that. Worst case, they sell a lot of really good power converters now if you need to upgrade. 3 stage charging along with a desulfate mode. I myself really like the Progressive Dynamics power converter brand. Still made in the USA. I had to upgrade my original 2004 converter as it had other issues.

Hope this helps.

John
Thank you for the info!
I have a 2013 f150 and I checked it once and it had power but I can't remember if I gave it enough time to click off, it takes so many seconds before lights and stuff go off, I'll recheck that tomorrow.

The converter does not have a charging wire, though it's definitely old it will work for my use I believe. From what I read on that model converter it was an option that could be added, mine does not. So any charging will need to come thru the truck or as stated I'll add a trickle charger for storage times.

Yes I will be adding a battery box and vent to the outside
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Old 12-13-2020, 09:00 AM   #13
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Usually if the truck was labeled as tow package may have isolator but no grantee most just had brake wiring for a controller and lights calling it a tow package. My Tacoma has no isolator but all of the other stuff from the factory. Mine is wired hot. Usually people don't keep their campers plugged into the truck hence no need for an isolator but with a slide in it would be very easy to leave it plugged in. Like I said the very best isolator is right at the 7 pin. So I'm thinking in your case an add on isolator would be a plus.
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Old 12-13-2020, 01:16 PM   #14
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Usually if the truck was labeled as tow package may have isolator but no grantee most just had brake wiring for a controller and lights calling it a tow package. My Tacoma has no isolator but all of the other stuff from the factory. Mine is wired hot. Usually people don't keep their campers plugged into the truck hence no need for an isolator but with a slide in it would be very easy to leave it plugged in. Like I said the very best isolator is right at the 7 pin. So I'm thinking in your case an add on isolator would be a plus.
I checked it a little bit ago and when the key goes off the power goes off at 7 way so that's good but now I need to figure the best way of wiring the battery in. I need to wire into the lights obviously but don't want to back feed power back into the truck if 7 way is still hooked up, not sure if any harm would be done or when the relay shuts down the power would stop there. Any ideal?
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Old 12-13-2020, 03:28 PM   #15
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Well if the power goes off with the truck it would make no difference if it was plugged it or not. Worst possible case you would not be able to turn off the truck! But I kind of doubt the factory would have wired it as such just for that reason. Do the light work when it is not plugged in?
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Old 12-13-2020, 04:27 PM   #16
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Well if the power goes off with the truck it would make no difference if it was plugged it or not. Worst possible case you would not be able to turn off the truck! But I kind of doubt the factory would have wired it as such just for that reason. Do the light work when it is not plugged in?
No lights don't work when not plugged in but I don't have batteries installed in camper yet
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Old 12-13-2020, 10:47 PM   #17
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I checked it a little bit ago and when the key goes off the power goes off at 7 way so that's good but now I need to figure the best way of wiring the battery in. I need to wire into the lights obviously but don't want to back feed power back into the truck if 7 way is still hooked up, not sure if any harm would be done or when the relay shuts down the power would stop there. Any ideal?
On the standard Sunline travel trailers or 5th wheel (or most other campers) that have a battery on the camper, a power converter and a 7 wire truck cable, then:

The 7 wire cord which plugs into the truck, the camper has a fused battery charge wire in that 7 wire cable. This wire traditionally is black in the 7 wire cable.

The black 7 wire cable charge wire goes to a fuse at the camper junction box area, then the other end of the fuse ties to the positive terminal on the battery.

The camper onboard power converter also hooks to the battery on a fused circuit.

The battery, the truck 7 wire cable charge wire and the power converter power positive wire are all common to each other. This allows the power converter to charge the battery when the camper is plugged into shore power and run all 12 VDC items in the camper. And run all the 12 V items in the camper off the battery.

When towing down the road, the truck alternator will charge the battery as the truck is running and you are no longer hooked to shore power.

Normally the camper (travel trailer and 5th wheel) is unhooked from the truck and the 7 wire cable is also unhooked. Then if the power converter is plugged in, there is no back feed to the truck as the 7 wire cable is unhooked.

In the case where the truck has an isolation relay in the 7 wire outlet battery charge wire, the 7 wire cable still plugged in, when the truck is off and timed out, the relay opens up and there is no back feed of 12 volts coming from the camper, either from the battery or the power converter.

In the case where there is no isolation relay in the truck 7 wire outlet battery charge wire, and the 7 wire cable is still plugged in from truck to camper, the camper battery is connected to the truck battery. Battery voltage/current will flow both ways in this case. Truck battery will supply power to the camper or the camper will supply power to the truck. Which way the power goes depends on where the power draw comes from. If lights go on in the camper, power would come from both batteries. If the power converter is on, converter charging power will go to both batteries. Since the wire is so long and small from truck to camper, not a lot will go to the truck battery but there is voltage and amperage going to the truck. The batteries will equalize over time either in charging or discharging. What I do not know is, will a back feed from the camper power converter or camper battery do anything to the truck alternator setup? In the trucks of the old days, I would say no. In modern days trucks, I'm not sure.

About 2 years ago, the alternator in my truck died while I was at camp and I did not know it. We had about a 1hr tow home. I had 2 to 3 starts of the truck, between dumping the camper tanks, hitching up and I tow with my headlights on. So all the camper body lights were on, plus the truck headlights and body lights, plus running the engine. My truck battery was getting low on voltage and my 2 group 27 batteries on the camper was back feeding the truck as it ran, keeping the truck running until I got home. The camper batteries was keeping the truck running.

At home and I shut the truck off, that was it. The 7 wire isolation relay dropped out and the truck battery was about dead. I could no longer start the truck to get any help from the camper batteries. The camper batteries were close to 50% discharged. I just plan lucked out I shut the truck off at home. Point being, when the camper batteries are connected to the truck, power will flow both ways depending on which end has the larger draw.

The truck camper setup is a bit different as there are many times you never unhitch the camper at camp. The 7 wire cable can then still be plugged into the truck and you plug in the shore power to fire up the power converter. It sounds like you have an isolation relay in your Ford truck. That should solve any back feed issues. It will on my 2005 F350. Not sure if your F150 is any different or not on the isolation relay. If this was a GM truck that is live all the time, then you need to either pull out the 7 wire cable or install an isolation relay in the camper if you want it to be automatic. You can install an isolation switch, you just have to remember to turn it on and off.

Here is a pic out of a 2004 T2499 Sunline travel trailer in the 7 wire cable junction box showing the battery charge wire and fuse.


Hope this helps

John

PS. If you can post some pics of your power converter and make/model number we may be able to help better. Some of the really old converters had a relay in them to switch between charge the battery or run the camper lights. Not like the newer converters that figure out on their own to charge or allow the battery to run the lights
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Old 12-14-2020, 06:02 AM   #18
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No lights don't work when not plugged in but I don't have batteries installed in camper yet
OK so the converter is working that's a good start. I'm guessing there is a wire red or black probably a #10 or 12 just laying around with nothing to do maybe even terminated with a ring terminal it's mate probably is white. They will be for the battery.
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Old 12-16-2020, 05:55 AM   #19
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Battery

Here's my charger
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Old 12-16-2020, 05:57 AM   #20
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Huh well pics didn't upload, I'll try again.

Well maybe I can't add pics from a cell phone?

Central power pack es-15 is my converter
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