Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Alaskan pop-up camper

Barkoff, I haven't ran this one down the road on 12 volts but I did with a camper that I previously had. Pre-cool it with gas or 120 then switch to 12 and it stayed very cold with no strain on the charging system.

A friend had a problem about like you have and it turned out to be a bad ground. Cleaned all his battery connections and all is well.

Lance has pop up versions? I have not looked in some time.

I would like to have one dropped in the back country to hunt from.

Barkoff - I agree with whomever said that a good working 12v system with clean/tight connections to refrig should power that 3rd way just fine while driving. I like to get away from the propane as much as possible and rarely hook up to 120v AC. Installed an aux RV batt for that refrig 12v power (the whole camper actually) and my alt charges both batts just fine when I select that 2 batt charging option. It should work.

Thanks for the comments. With the truck running the camper batteries are reading 13.4 volts, would you expect anymore than that? I'm thinking if the truck is also charging the two bigger truck batteries, the camper batteries reading 13.4 would be expected. Were you thinking that a bad ground between the truck charging system and camper batteries, or between the camper batteries and fridge?

Could it be need to replace alternator with one that has really high output?

I know I did in the car I run for EMS/Fire pages, just to be a bit on the safe side keeping my battery charged, and I do have same on the trucks that have dual batteries.

Possible the batteries are getting bad too?

In my limited experience, almost any 12v auto/truck batt that runs at 13.4V and stays there with charging is doing fine. And, if your camper battery charging system is working correctly , the camper batt should be about that as well.

My only caveat is overall output rating of your alt/charging system. A straightforward test of that setup should tell you if you can get the 13.4 at all four batts while operating a normal road RPM.

Yes - a poor ground on camper batts could mess that up. If doubtful, just run a short aux ground to frame/rad shell for those. Now, if the fridge is not well grounded to the truck frame/ground, no amount of Vs in the camper batt will make it work right. My camper/mohome stuff is old/simple and the bugs were worked out long ago. In that guesswork scenario, I would run a known solid ground from the fridge to truck.

You'll get it. Best wishes.

Batteries are all Interstates less than three years old. Have never heard of replacing an alternator with a high output one, would that be detrimental to the life of the batteries?

No, the voltage regulator takes care of that.

In order to get your camper batteries charged up again do you have to use a battery charger or will they charge up from your truck if you leave the fridge off?

No, it wouldn't.

I'm guessing bad ground. I had the same problem in my trailer. Rat or squirrel chewed on one of my wires. Was getting just enough connection for it to work, not enough to charge