Hey Guys, I have a 2003 silverado with trailer package so the trailer plug is pre wired. I installed the fuse so I now have power to the charging terminal on the plug. Can I hook it directly to a trailer battery to charge it or does it need some kind of circuit to protect the truck wiring from back flow? This is a home made trailer so the trailer is not wired from a factory.
you can hook up directly to your trailer battery.
Thanks for the reply but now I have another question. This is a dump trailer so it will be powering a hydraulic pump. If it's wired straight will it keep blowing fuses in the truck if the pump drains the trailer battery too much? Here's a little side note: I tried powering some high intensity back up lights mounted on the trailer using the charging wire as the main source of power and it wasn't enough power to burn the lights. It didn't blow a fuse either. I was using 14 guage wire on the trailer.
I expect that pump draws a lot of current. It may blow the fuse every time. Replace your fuse with an automatic resettable circuit breaker. You can get them at most auto supply stores.
A hi-lo RV trailer (It uses a starter motor to drive it's hydraulic lift) will blow the fuse every time. What I did was put in a 40 ampere fuse followed by a 30 ampere auto-resettable circuit breaker. The breaker always opened before the fuse blew. As soon as the high current load went away the breaker closed again.
As for the high powered lights, you can't expect to run them through a wire from the truck battery. Let the trailer battery handle them for as long as they can and then recharge the trailer battery. You should use at least a 10 gauge charge wire. Don't forget to provide a good return wire too as it is just as important as the charge wire. If your truck battery has a good wire to the Chassis you can just ground your return wire to the chassis right near the trailer plug. Just be sure it is a good solid ground.
If you need a lot of battery power you might want to consider using a pair of 6 volt Golf Cart batteries in series (SAMS have them for about $50 each).
Battery > Thanks for the reply but now I have another question. This is a dump
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