Hi all:
I have two wiring questions. I have read up on both but I am still looking for advice. For background, I have moderate wiring experience: wired trailers, ran wiring in my truck before, rewired parts of our camper, etc. I am looking for advice on if my proposed setup is okay, if any improvements could be made, and most importantly sources for materials for those improvements. Also for background, both of these projects are on a 2001 Dodge Ram CTD and a pop-up truck camper that currently has 2 Trojan 6V deep cycle batteries wired in series
First Question -- Wiring from Truck to Camper While Traveling
The current setup in our camper is a pigtail that is wired directly to the 6V batteries (located at the front, passenger side of the camper). The pigtail comes out at the FRONT of the camper on the driver side and to plug into the truck you have to run it down the side of the camper in the bed and it plugs into the 7 way plug for a trailer connection. My plan is to keep the connection at the trailer connection, but to run a wire to a 4 pole round female socket that would be mounted on the back of the camper, like this. Obviously, I would only use 2 of the 4 wires in the connection, one for hot and one for ground. My question is regarding the camper connection: can I tie the wiring from the plug socket directly into the wiring that comes from the batteries to my power distribution/fuse panel (located at the rear, driver side)? Currently, the wiring from the pigtail goes directly to the batteries, then another set of wires runs from the batteries back to the fuse panel. If I tie directly into the wiring from the batteries to the power distribution/fuse panel, it will save me from running ~10' of wiring and it will keep things cleaner. My understanding is that elecricity will always flow "downhill", so if the truck alternator is at ~14V the flow should always flow through the wiring to charge the batteries. The only thing I would need to remember is to unplug the camper from the truck while not driving or risk draining the truck batteries. Is this correct? If not, can someone explain what I should do? Also, I thought about wiring in a diode to prevent the camper from draining the truck battery but I do not know the specs for a proper diode or a source for them. Can anyone recommend an inline diode I could splice into the system?
Second Question -- Wiring in Aux Lights at the Rear
I have replaced the front factory fogs with LED cubes that now come on with the factory fog switch. I also plan on wiring in a 20" LED bar on the bumper that will be splice into this system and be activated via a remote switch, essentially creating the option of fogs with light bar or fogs only. I also plan on installing cubes under the bumper next to the trailer hitch in the rear. My plan for the rear is to wire into the existing wiring of the trailer hitch. I want to keep it simple, the lights are LED with low voltage draw, so I don't see the need to run a seperate circuit for them. My plan is to wire the lights in two ways, with connections to both the reverse/backup and aux/charging wires from the trailer plug. The connection from the the aux/charging wires would have an inline switch, mounted on/under the bumper and the reverse/backup would automatically come on in reverse. I hope to wire diodes into each wire to allow for current flow in only one direction. With this setup, I hope to have the lights turn on in reverse as well as be able to turn them on from the bumper at camp to help setup or illuminate at night. Obviously, they will not be on continuously to prevent draining the truck battery. Does this setup sound reasonable? What are the potential problems? What specs should I look for in a diode or can someone point me to the right one? Could I wire in an isolator of some sort to automatically cut off at a specific voltage -- so I could turn the lights on from the switch I install and they use the truck battery until a specific voltage and then they shut off without me having to monitor them.
Okay all, thanks for any insight you can provide, always open to suggestions/improvements/input.
I have two wiring questions. I have read up on both but I am still looking for advice. For background, I have moderate wiring experience: wired trailers, ran wiring in my truck before, rewired parts of our camper, etc. I am looking for advice on if my proposed setup is okay, if any improvements could be made, and most importantly sources for materials for those improvements. Also for background, both of these projects are on a 2001 Dodge Ram CTD and a pop-up truck camper that currently has 2 Trojan 6V deep cycle batteries wired in series
First Question -- Wiring from Truck to Camper While Traveling
The current setup in our camper is a pigtail that is wired directly to the 6V batteries (located at the front, passenger side of the camper). The pigtail comes out at the FRONT of the camper on the driver side and to plug into the truck you have to run it down the side of the camper in the bed and it plugs into the 7 way plug for a trailer connection. My plan is to keep the connection at the trailer connection, but to run a wire to a 4 pole round female socket that would be mounted on the back of the camper, like this. Obviously, I would only use 2 of the 4 wires in the connection, one for hot and one for ground. My question is regarding the camper connection: can I tie the wiring from the plug socket directly into the wiring that comes from the batteries to my power distribution/fuse panel (located at the rear, driver side)? Currently, the wiring from the pigtail goes directly to the batteries, then another set of wires runs from the batteries back to the fuse panel. If I tie directly into the wiring from the batteries to the power distribution/fuse panel, it will save me from running ~10' of wiring and it will keep things cleaner. My understanding is that elecricity will always flow "downhill", so if the truck alternator is at ~14V the flow should always flow through the wiring to charge the batteries. The only thing I would need to remember is to unplug the camper from the truck while not driving or risk draining the truck batteries. Is this correct? If not, can someone explain what I should do? Also, I thought about wiring in a diode to prevent the camper from draining the truck battery but I do not know the specs for a proper diode or a source for them. Can anyone recommend an inline diode I could splice into the system?
Second Question -- Wiring in Aux Lights at the Rear
I have replaced the front factory fogs with LED cubes that now come on with the factory fog switch. I also plan on wiring in a 20" LED bar on the bumper that will be splice into this system and be activated via a remote switch, essentially creating the option of fogs with light bar or fogs only. I also plan on installing cubes under the bumper next to the trailer hitch in the rear. My plan for the rear is to wire into the existing wiring of the trailer hitch. I want to keep it simple, the lights are LED with low voltage draw, so I don't see the need to run a seperate circuit for them. My plan is to wire the lights in two ways, with connections to both the reverse/backup and aux/charging wires from the trailer plug. The connection from the the aux/charging wires would have an inline switch, mounted on/under the bumper and the reverse/backup would automatically come on in reverse. I hope to wire diodes into each wire to allow for current flow in only one direction. With this setup, I hope to have the lights turn on in reverse as well as be able to turn them on from the bumper at camp to help setup or illuminate at night. Obviously, they will not be on continuously to prevent draining the truck battery. Does this setup sound reasonable? What are the potential problems? What specs should I look for in a diode or can someone point me to the right one? Could I wire in an isolator of some sort to automatically cut off at a specific voltage -- so I could turn the lights on from the switch I install and they use the truck battery until a specific voltage and then they shut off without me having to monitor them.
Okay all, thanks for any insight you can provide, always open to suggestions/improvements/input.