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Gandy Dancer · 03-22-2021, 09:13 AM

I use a remote camera on my Toad to better see when I can change lanes. For the last few months, I have plugged it in to the cigarette lighter (if that is still the name) in the vehicle but it times out after an hour or so. Thinking about wiring it directly to the charge line coming from the coach but don't want it to backfeed off the toad battery when not connected to the coach. Can I put a HD diode in the charge line to prevent that from happening? Looks to be a 20 amp fuse protecting the charge line.

2020 Dutch Star 4369
2016 F150 Toad

ROUGHRIDER3 · 03-22-2021, 06:30 PM

May cause your toad battery to over charge as the coach charging system will not get any feed back of state of charge thru the diode.

Dutch Star Don · 03-23-2021, 08:41 PM

If you're running a charge line, why not just run a wire/fuse from the battery or wire that is always hot and power the camera that way. You can buy a nice looking cigarette lighter outlet with a bracket on Amazon. Mount it in an out of the way spot.

Gandy Dancer · 03-24-2021, 04:48 AM

Thanks Don, probably overthinking it, just trying to avoid draining the battery if I fail to switch it off overnight when disconnected but probably doesn’t draw enough to be off concern. May just come off the parking light circuit supplied from the bus (since I run with my lights on) and call it good. Thanks for the reply.