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Old 03-07-2015, 09:34 AM   #15
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If you have a hand crank, adapt it to a cordless drill. Now you just need to remember to charge and carry that!

Taking 1 battery out of a truck, while leaving 1 in and running is perilous. If you let the pos. terminal touch ground, it shorts out the other battery, burning up the cables, as it kills it.

Carefull out there
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Old 03-07-2015, 11:20 AM   #16
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Next time, get a small (15-30w) solar charger to leave with the RV. Google Instapark solar for those. Also, see if you have a battery disconnect switch and use it to prevent parasitic drain. For now, remove the battery from the RV, put it on a battery charger and bring it back with a full charge.
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Old 03-07-2015, 07:28 PM   #17
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I asked this very question when I purchased my Solitude 369RL and although I have never had a dead battery in the RV they told me that all I had to do was plug the trailer into my plug and I would be able to retract my slides and lift my landing gear if you have a test light you can check your plug on the truck to see if it has a charge wire
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Old 03-08-2015, 12:54 AM   #18
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Yea it ain't rocket science fellas, either the plug works or you can trade the battery out of your truck and use that and then put it back in, no need to leave it running, its not gonna kill a battery retracting your jacks, if it does you needed a new one anyway cause that one was shot, lol
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Old 03-08-2015, 08:43 AM   #19
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Yea it ain't rocket science fellas, either the plug works or you can trade the battery out of your truck and use that and then put it back in, no need to leave it running, its not gonna kill a battery retracting your jacks, if it does you needed a new one anyway cause that one was shot, lol
RV batteries are a different connection than truck batteries a lot of time.
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Old 03-08-2015, 09:22 AM   #20
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RV batteries are a different connection than truck batteries a lot of time.
Whats different?
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Old 03-08-2015, 09:27 AM   #21
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On my first 5er I was learning all but using and storing a 5er. I would put the 5er away in the storage yard after every camping trip and when I went to tow the 5er out the battery would be dead. The electrical parasitic in the camper would drain the battery dead.

What I found out was I could simply plug in the camper umbilical cord to the truck’s 7-way plug and start the engine and used the alternator with the truck electrical system to rise the legs on the camper with no issues what’s so every. By the time I got the camper home from the storage yard the truck alternator would charge the campers’ battery up enough to power the legs down without be hooked to the truck.

At least on Chevy’s and Ram trucks this will work I cannot say about the ford trucks since I will not use one and have no experience with one pulling a 5er.

I have since learned to have a battery disconnect switch and use this; mine complete disengages the negative cable from the battery.

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Old 03-08-2015, 09:50 AM   #22
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Whats different?
The way the wire bolts to the battery, but all you gotta do is touch it to the terminal, might be hard to do by yourself and still reach the button for the jacks if you don't have any vice grips though. Bring a friend, lol
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Old 03-13-2015, 10:41 PM   #23
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The Ford trucks need to run or key on to feed power to the trailer. The wires on mine were very small and dought there is enough wire not to kill the fuse.
Maybe the fuse is not installed that prevents power to the jacks. Usually while idling for a while there will be enough power for the jacks to move. Then I would crank it up manually. I do mine periodically to test it in case of emergency like this. Or a burnt motor.
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Old 03-15-2015, 08:49 AM   #24
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Bought an additional battery and will swap them out and charge the battery when I get back to civilization. Guess I will always carry an additional battery from now on. Seems to be a real oversight from the manufacturers to me. But then, when did they ever think of us consumers. Once we leave the showroom we are on our on.
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Old 03-15-2015, 08:55 AM   #25
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The dealers install the batteries not the manufacturers. I had my dealer install two batteries. The manufacturer of my 5th wheel designed the battery compartment to hold up to 4 batteries. Most folks can get by with one battery. Not me and obviously not you.
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Old 03-15-2015, 10:12 AM   #26
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Whats different?
A RV battery can have threaded studs sticking up with nuts that hold the cables instead of the lead posts.
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Old 03-16-2015, 12:30 AM   #27
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Doesn't matter how many batteries you have if they are all connected and you don't monitor the voltage when camping or disconnect them for storage, you'll just have 4 dead ones instead of 1.

Were you camping in it using the battery or just storing it there? I always disconnect my battery for storage. There's always some small power drain like an led on a smoke alarm or something that will leave you with a dead battery if you park it and don't use it for a couple weeks or so. If you were camping you should've noticed your lights getting dimmer and saved enough juice to operate the landing gear if your truck plug doesn't work.

Did you retrieve it yet? Did you try plugging it into your truck and then raise them? I'd bet it will if the plug on your truck is working correctly and providing power. It doesn't really take much juice, my landing gear motor power wire only has a 30 amp fuse in the line.

When my battery is low from boondocking and I start raising the gear before I plug it into the truck it runs much slower and once connected to truck power it speeds up noticeably.

I'd also bet there is a manual crank capability, on mine the access hole is kinda hidden in the propane storage area and took me a minute to find when I had a motor issue once, small rod goes through a small hole and connects to the landing gear on the motor side on mine. However you'll probably be hand cranking it for 15-20 minutes if it's anything like mine.

If you have a sealed battery you can turn it upside down and touch the posts directly to the dead one if they match up, just make sure you don't do it backwards or it will heat up and explode given enough time and don't use a vented battery or you'll have a nasty mess. I used to have an optima gel cell battery and did this a few times when there were no jumper cables available. Works great in a pinch!
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Old 03-25-2015, 01:11 PM   #28
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I store my 5er offsite as well, and the exact same thing happened to me. Two 6v batteries ran in series and they were completely dead. I took the batteries home and charged them and one of the batteries didn't survive. You have to buy two batteries when using them in series so that was costly. I ended up putting solar on my RV and now they are completely full all the time. I wrote about it on my site and some of the nuggets on there may help you. Solar on the RV — Jeromes RVing

I love the solar, even if you go with a 20 watt kicker to keep it topped off or a full setup like I have it will save you a lot of money on batteries over the years. Batteries lose 10% a month naturally plus any phantom loads from the trailer.
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