Dump trailer hydraulics

[zing]

Is that a solar battery maintainer on top of the tool box?

Yes, its a 1.5A solar charger.

Heyyyy, I was just thinking about putting one of those on my horse trailer to maintain the battery box that runs the lights in the tack room, the horse area, and the strobes off of the back. I would love to be able to hook my little panel up and forget it, instead of having to regularly hook up the charger and recharge the battery.

I was second guessing it though after I saw people on here saying that trickle chargers can cause your battery fluid to boil dry over time. Mind you they were talking about cheap plugin charges rather than the solar ones, but still it had me wondering if it was a bad idea. Have you had any issues having that on there?

 

[1gr8bldr]

Yes, its a 1.5A solar charger.

Cool, thanks for the pics. Always like looking at equipment pics

 

[George2615]

Heyyyy, I was just thinking about putting one of those on my horse trailer to maintain the battery box that runs the lights in the tack room, the horse area, and the strobes off of the back. I would love to be able to hook my little panel up and forget it, instead of having to regularly hook up the charger and recharge the battery.

I was second guessing it though after I saw people on here saying that trickle chargers can cause your battery fluid to boil dry over time. Mind you they were talking about cheap plugin charges rather than the solar ones, but still it had me wondering if it was a bad idea. Have you had any issues having that on there?

I did have a problem with the solar charger I put on my tilt bed trailer. The wiring burned up. I don't know if it was from excessive current draw while using the pump to tilt the trailer or if I back fed too much current when it was hooked up to the truck. I haven't bought a replacement yet. The one on the dump trailer is working fine. I make sure I unhook it before plugging in the truck or operating the dump box. There may be a problem with the tilt bed deep cycle battery because it doesn't seem to hold a charge after 6 years. I have to test that battery to make sure it doesn't have a bad cell.

 

[zing]

I did have a problem with the solar charger I put on my tilt bed trailer. The wiring burned up. I don't know if it was from excessive current draw while using the pump to tilt the trailer or if I back fed too much current when it was hooked up to the truck. I haven't bought a replacement yet. The one on the dump trailer is working fine. I make sure I unhook it before plugging in the truck or operating the dump box. There may be a problem with the tilt bed deep cycle battery because it doesn't seem to hold a charge after 6 years. I have to test that battery to make sure it doesn't have a bad cell.

Oh wow, I was worried about the solar charger damaging the battery. It never occurred to me that the vehicle power might burn up the solar charger. Looks like I will have to unplug it when I am travelling with the trailer too. Thanks for the tip.

 

[George2615]

Oh wow, I was worried about the solar charger damaging the battery. It never occurred to me that the vehicle power might burn up the solar charger. Looks like I will have to unplug it when I am travelling with the trailer too. Thanks for the tip.

It never occurred to me either. Won't be sure till I can check things out this weekend.

 

[1gr8bldr]

Bungee rails are welded. Dang, you know I would run out of wire and have to go to town. I put them 19.2 inches on center.

 

[1gr8bldr]

Look at this diagram;
http://www.northerntool.com/images/downloads/manuals/10721.pdf

My instructions showed the plastic plug port as the correct hookup. But it showed the steel plugged on the opposite side as an option, taking this steel plug and putting it in place of the plastic plug... which is what I did, works well. Now I have to figure which plug to use as the return. This pic looks like the other port [7/16x20], a smaller size. My paper work seems to be different. What do you think? The reason I did not use the port with the plastic plug was that my hydraulic line would not reach. This pic is showing the top left port as a return, but not my paper work????

 

[1gr8bldr]

The online manual is different than my paperwork only on the port opposite the plastic plug. On my paper work it says this ;Outlet/return port 9/16-18 oring steel plugged optional-may be used by removing steel plug. other port should then be steel plugged

 

[zing]

Oh wow, I was worried about the solar charger damaging the battery. It never occurred to me that the vehicle power might burn up the solar charger. Looks like I will have to unplug it when I am travelling with the trailer too. Thanks for the tip.

It never occurred to me either. Won't be sure till I can check things out this weekend.

Giving your thread a bump so you might get some responses to your Q's on hydraulics, and also to add to the info on the solar chargers.

I had a look through the manual for my 1.8 watt solar charger and it states that if the charger is less than 15 watts you do not need any type of charge controller, so it seems to be safe to leave it on all of the time and will not overcharge the battery.

You were right though about danger to the unit from leaving it on while driving. The manual is only two pages long and it was important enough for them to mention twice that it is not safe to leave the solar panel plugged in while driving the vehicle. I installed mine into my horse trailer on the weekend and am pleased with the results. From the outside you can't really see it because of the tinted window, but from the inside you can see what I did, placing it between the screen and the glass so I am not relying on just the suction cups to keep it in place.

I followed the path of the wiring that was already going from inside the gooseneck out to the battery box. I couldn't get it to thread through the multiple elbows in the tube so I just wrapped it around, and I had to splice in an extention to increase the length of the wire, but a test with the multimeter showed that the panel was putting out some current.

The panel has a jack that allows you to switch between alligator clamps on the pattery poles or just plugging it into a cig lighter. I am clamping directly to the poles, but I placed the jack in an easily assessible spot so I can easily disconnect the panel when the trailer is connected to the truck for travel, without having to open the locked battery box every time.

Hopefully this will mean I no longer have to periodically connect to the charger to keep the trailer lights working (or at least a lot less frequently) and also helps prolong battery life by keeping a trickle charge in the colder winter days.

 

[1gr8bldr]

Some of the cheaper solar charges dont have the diode to stop reverse drain at night. I suspect that most do these days, but not long ago, many did not