2008 keystone Laredo

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
J

jbeliera

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2017
Posts
7
Hello everyone.
I am new to this site and I have had trouble finding any internet sources that answer my question. I have just recently purchased a used 2008 Keystone Laredo 29RL fifth wheel.  I have not picked it up yet so I have a preliminary question just in case my used RV dealer doesn't give me a solution.  I have seen the two house batteries in the nose compartment of this fifth wheel but they are covered by two vented boxes that look pretty secure and rather time consuming to take off so that the batteries can be recharged while dry camping.  With my other camper I usually charged my house batteries twice a day  I ran my Yamaha generator in the morning and in the evening to charge my house batteries quicker than my converter could.  My question is:  it looks like recharging the house batteries daily while dry camping with this unit is going to be a chore to take the boxes off of the batteries all the time.  Can those boxes be left off so that the batteries terminals are exposed for recharging this trailer.  The boxes look  like they have a vent hose that vents through the propane compartment but there are no exposed terminals for easy access to the battery terminals  Bummer what a system
 
Can you wire in something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/p/2-PC-Battery-Connector-Plug-6-10-AWG-120a-for-12v-Winch-Trailer-Driver-Car-Truck/1154506665?iid=252665732000

One time opening the boxes to do the battery wiring, and either set your charger up with an adapter to go from the alligator clips to the new quick connect. Or the way I would do it would be buy two kits, cut the alligator clips off, leaving enough lead on them and permanently wire the kit to the charger. You can then plug the charger directly to the batteries or plug in the alligator clips for use elsewhere.
 
I am looking at all options for this poor design.  Thank you for your suggestion and I will certainly keep this under consideration.  What ever happened to the simpler days?
 
Why not just plug the trailer into the genset and let the trailer's converter/charger handle the chore? It's probably a more powerful charger than whatever you are using now.  If you were using the genset's own 12v outlet for direct charging to the battery terminals, you were getting only a modest charging current and it is unregulated as well.
 
All in the name of safety. You don't want those batteries venting to the storage compartment.
 
Yes in the interest of safety the boxes need to stay on .  The charger I am using is a 25 AMP charger hooked to my Yamaha gen and I didn't think the converter in the trailer wired into into the shore power trailer chord was as powerful as my separate charger.  It has  been my experience that chargers never seem to bring up deep cycle batteries very fast any way. I am not sure of what the charging amperage of the 29RL converter is  I guess i will have to try and find that info somewhere, but I won't know the amount of recharge by using the converter.  I will be a crap shoot to know if they are up good enough to survive the furnace blower for an evening.  You can't always depend on battery panel lights to give you a more precise reading as to the percentage of charge on your heavy duty batteries.
 
The same advice I gave another poster here. Get a Trimetrics monitor:

http://www.bogartengineering.com/products/trimetrics/

 
Thank you all for much needed information  i will go through my coach converter using the shore power line, and install a battery monitor in the near future
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 1,114 (members: 30, guests: 1,084)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,930
Posts
1,387,710
Members
137,681
Latest member
skidsteerpilot
Back
Top Bottom