Charging a dump trailer battery

[bja105]

I rented a dump trailer for a day, and made 10 short haul trips with it. On the tenth trip, the battery died, and I had to put it on the battery charger, then shovel some out.

I want to buy a dump trailer, and make sure my 2005 Durango will charge the trailer battery. I just checked, I have 12+ volts on the car's 7 pin plug at the pins marked + and -. That should do it, right?

I had guessed that I blew a fuse with all the short hops and charging, but I didn't find a blown fuse.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

I can't address the pinout, other than to say - yes, the 7pin is used to charge the battery. Mine does.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Those pins charge but at a low rate, about 20 amps. While in theory it will do the job I suspect either all the short hops did it in or the trailer is not properly wired.

Chris

 

[caver]

My understanding is the bulk of the charge is in the first few minutes and ohms law would say most of the charging juice goes to your truck battery.

 

[redprospector]

On short hauls the vehicle charging system can't keep up generally, and if the battery is totally drained and you leave it connected to your vehicle it can drain that battery too.
I made up a 25' set of jumper cables from welding cable. Not only can you dump when the trailer battery is down, but you can take a 15 minute break and get a real good head start on charging it back up.

 

[Ken45101]

That charging pin on the connector is probably only wired to work when the ignition is turned on.

It's probably not a heavy enough charge rate to keep it charged during short trips. Besides, if you look at the wiring, that may be only good for 10 or 15 amps max.

 

[George2615]

I replaced the 7 pin charge wire fuse with a circuit breaker in my truck. That charge lead feeds the batteries on each of my trailers when hooked up to the truck. On one trailer I have the hydraulic tilt and a winch. The hyd. don't draw a lot but the winch does and would often blow the charge wire fuse. I also added 1.5A solar chargers to each trailer to keep the batteries topped off when not in use.

 

[Sysop]

Also helps to ensure someone didn't swap out the original battery for a plain car battery. Generally they come with a deep cycle battery which tends to do better under long periods of high load.

 

[JJZ 109]

If you buy a trailer I wouldn't depend on the vehicle as the sole source of charging the trailer battery. I keep the built in charger on my dump trailer plugged in at all times when not in use.
In winter I bring the batter inside and keep a maintainer on it.

 

[MoMower]

Bought my dump trailer from a rental place used, it will go about a month between charges (use it once a week or so), then I plug it in and forget about it, it has a NAPA maintainer installed.

 

[Winmac]

On the trailers I've seen most had a 5 amp thermal resetting circuit breaker inline on the bat + charge wire.
If the battery draws more than 5 amps the current constantly switches on and off, not a good way to charge a battery.

 

[schmism]

whats short haul mean? Loading it with some industrial sized machine that takes 1/2 bucket to fill your trailer then down the road 2 miles dump, and return? If so your cycle time would be less than 5 min.

If you load for 10 min (like with a bobcat or CUT) then short haul...(down the road 1/2 mile) dump and return that still is a 15 min cycle. If you leave the tow vehicle running that entire time It should be long enough to recharge the battery on the trailer if wired correctly.

I have mine setup with a 10ga wire running from my vehicle battery with a 20amp circuit breaker.

 

[CJONE]

You left the vehicle running when you were loading and unloading right? I quit letting anyone borrow my dump trailer because even if they had a charge circuit [most didn't] they would shut the vehicle off to "save money on gas" So the battery would get drained [and damaged] by somebody being cheap. Now that I quit being nice I have never had a issue with the standard 20 amp charging system on my 3 trucks keeping up in any situation. CJ
Edit previous post covered it also.

 

[4shorts]

Yup. Short trips can take a dump trailer battery down fast. Now if your trailers dump is also powered down then the battery can't keep up. I keep mine on a trickle automatic charger whenever it's not hooked up to the truck. That way I know I'm heading out with a fully charged battery.

 

[bja105]

Thanks all.

My car, a 2005 Durango, sends 12v to the trailer even with the ignition off.

I let the car idle, it still only made 9 dumps, power up and down.



On Saturday, I bought a brand new Sure-Trac 5x10 dump trailer. The salesman said most of these are good for 8-10 dumps before recharging, and I should use a different charger when I park it. He said the trucks charge it too slow to help much, and that seems right to me. The Durango only has a 10 amp fuse and light gauge wire to the trailer charging circuit. I am not inclined to pull heavier wire when my battery charger will do the job. I have one at home and at the farm, no problem.

Now that I own a trailer, I won't need to push as many consecutive trips, since I can load any weekend.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

8 - 10 dumps on a charge? That's nonsense. I ran dozens of loads on my 6x10 dump before recharging the deep-cycle battery.

 

[George2615]

Thanks all.

My car, a 2005 Durango, sends 12v to the trailer even with the ignition off.

I let the car idle, it still only made 9 dumps, power up and down.



On Saturday, I bought a brand new Sure-Trac 5x10 dump trailer. The salesman said most of these are good for 8-10 dumps before recharging, and I should use a different charger when I park it. He said the trucks charge it too slow to help much, and that seems right to me. The Durango only has a 10 amp fuse and light gauge wire to the trailer charging circuit. I am not inclined to pull heavier wire when my battery charger will do the job. I have one at home and at the farm, no problem.

Now that I own a trailer, I won't need to push as many consecutive trips, since I can load any weekend.

Have you checked for power to the plug since your use. You may have blown the charge fuse. If you do have voltage it should be over 13V with the engine running. Check it at the plug then at the trailer battery.

On my dump trailer I had to add a ground wire from the battery to the trailer frame. The factory ran the battery cables directly to the hyd. pump body and relay which is mounted in a plastic tongue box. The pump worked off the trailer battery because the hot and ground were connected directly but my truck plug couldn't charge the battery because the trailer battery wasn't grounded to the frame to complete the circuit.
So, double check to see if the charge wire from the truck does feed the trailer battery and make sure the trailer battery ground connects to the frame.

 

[The Fred]

Takes a good 24 hour period to properly charge a battery at 14.4 volts. That thing will draw a good amp or two up until it's just about done.
Open circuit voltage of a fully charged battery is 12.6 volts.

Fred

Charging Information For Lead Acid Batteries

 

[CJONE]

I can only get 2 complete cycles then half way through the third it dies. I know 100% the battery is good and it is from a full charge. I also have meters that tell me the condition of the battery and it is still above it's rating so it is NOT a bad battery. When this trailer is hooked up to any of my trucks it never has a problem. CJ

 

[David_Kb7uns]

Had interstate battery in my Load Trail dump trailer that would not go a full dump cycle but passed a Midtronics tester and a carbon pile test.

The Interstate dealer did one last test with a hydrometer and one cell was bad, so battery faults are not always picked up by modern testers. Even blew the charge fuse on the truck when dumping because battery voltage dipped so far solved that by putting thermal circuit breaker 5 amp less rating then truck charge fuse.

Also have 2 small 5 watt panels with charge control to maintain and plug in if possible for a bulk charge or use small generator if needed.

David Kb7uns