It's been a busy couple months so the trailer fell to the back burner for a while. With the coming of spring I finally decided it was time to get back at it and get things ready for camping season.
The battery charger in the trailer has a few different modes based on certain factors, including the load on the battery while it is charging. Given that the fridge runs off the 12V from the battery and that it can run while the battery is charging the trailer comes set up so that the charger only goes into float charge (13.5V) and doesn't enter the boost phase (14.4V). This prevents the battery from overcharging. While I liked that this setup prevented overcharging, I did want the batteries to get a full charge when plugged in to shore power without having to fiddle with the charger each time. After reading the manual for the fridge I realized that it would be a pretty simple problem to solve.
The fridge manual says that the fridge will run on either 120V or 12V but that 120V will take priority when both sources are present. The only 120V in the trailer is the short run from the shore plug to the battery charger though. To remedy that I bought a 10' exterior extension cord, chopped off the male end, and wired it up to the shore plug alongside the battery charger. I then ran it forwards to the fridge compartment and secured the female end next to the 12V socket in the fridge compartment. Now I can plug in both cords to the fridge and leave the charger on the "complete" charge setting. With the trailer on shore power the fridge will run off 120V and not put a load on the battery so it can be fully charged safely. With the trailer unplugged the fridge will run off the battery. Best of all it's completely automatic.
The other electrical project I wanted to take care of was the 7 pin connector from the trailer to the truck. Since Toyota hides the factory 7 pin connector about 12" left of centre and 8" back under the bumper the trailer harness didn't reach the truck when we bought it. Denise and Michael had lent us their 7 pin extension harness when we bought the trailer but with that returned I wanted a more permanent and streamlined solution so I decided to extend the original harness. I bought a piece of 7 pin trailer wiring, chopped off the short piece inside the front of the trailer frame and spliced in the new longer piece. I also used the reverse light wire to power a pair of LED reverse lights I swapped in for one of the rear light sets. There were a few times on our maiden voyage where I was backing up at night guided only by hand signals so having the extra light to see behind the trailer will be a nice improvement this year.
IMG_3129 by
96r50, on Flickr
That's all I've accomplished lately but I do have plans for more. I'm looking at different hot water setups and trying to figure out how to get on board hot water in the trailer. I also need to pull the trailer outside so I can set up the tent and install LED light strips inside for nighttime illumination. I also need to adjust the brakes (I think the cables have stretched a bit) and figure out a way to get a kitchen-only awning with no ground poles for those short overnight pitstops where you don't want to set up a lot of pegs and guylines.
