Battery to power trailer hydraulics & winch

[Gary_in_Indiana]

What type of battery should I install on a trailer to power the electric hydraulic tilt bed mechanism and the electric winch on it? I was thinking that a deep cycle marine battery might be the way to go. I have wiring run from my truck battery back there as a backup system but, if I'm in another truck, I need the trailer to be self-contained.

[Bird]

The deep cycle marine (or RV) battery would be my preference.

[hazmat]

"The deep cycle marine (or RV) battery would be my preference."

Mine too. "deep cycle" means the battery is designed to be discharged closer to "dead" than a normal battery which gives a short burts to start an engine & then leaves the rest up to the alternator.

Typically for a given size, a deep cycle battery won't have as many cold cranking amps available. I think it has something to do with the thickness of the electrodes, but I'm not sure.

[knucklehead]

What about those new sealed gel units? Are they deep cycle? They certainly appear to be the battery of choice with the 4wd truck crowd, for rough use. would the truck wiring perform charging duty? Wouldn't it be neat to rig that up? RV's have the circuitry to do that - is it just an inexpensive, standard voltage regulator, like found on older cars?

[Gary_in_Indiana]

<font color=blue>"would the truck wiring perform charging duty?"</font color=blue>

According to the counter guy at my local NAPA store, that would be asking a lot of my alternator and would likely require some extra equipment, too.

My battery guy came by this afternoon and I bought a deep cycle marine battey from him for this project. He told me one of the differences between the regular and marine style batteries is the dampening or vibration protection around the plates in the batteries. Apparently the marine batteries are designed to take more physical abuse and jostling than standard automotive batteries.

One thing I like about using this style is the extra terminals for connections. I'll be running the winch and tilt bed off this as well as having leads run off it for more easily accessible charging points and for a connection to allow me to run off my truck battery power if necessary.

I'll let you know how this all works out after I get all my wiring done. I'm putting on new LED tail/turn lights and new LED side marker lights in the middle so I can be easily seen.

Just like on my motorcycle, I'll overdo the lighting just because I don't want the last thing ever said about me to be, "Gee, I never even saw him..."

Thanks for confirming my suspicions here. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif[/img] I'll try to post some pictures when I'm all done. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Kodiak]

Gary:

Your trailer lights I'm assuming are going to run off of your truck tail light circuits. So they won't be a drain on your trailer battery. However, and I'm sure you have already thought of this your winch draws a lot more juice over a longer period of time. And I'm assuming that your also talking about an electric hydraulic system for a hoist. Also a high drain electric motor. I would suggest running two batteries with an independant switch. That way you can operate off of one battery or the other,or both. and you can shut them both off if you need two. This should also allow you to charge them in the same order.
I know from my snowplowing and four wheeling days, its the pits when your battery has drained because your alternator couldn't keep up.

[Gary_in_Indiana]

You're right. I'm running my trailer lights in the conventional manner. I'll be able to run both the winch and the hoist off my truck battery with one connection so that'll be my 'second battery' if I ever need it. I won't be using the trailer too often without my truck with the extra connection. That's the only time I'll really have to rely on the deep cycle exclusively.

[wroughtn_harv]

Gary,

I'm assuming you have a breakaway hooked up to your trailer. (A breakaway is a small gel type battery that will apply the trailer brakes if the tow vehicle loses the trailer.)

Some of these come with a charger that works off the truck.

That charger would work fine on a deep cycle if you're spending a lot of time towing.

A deep cycle battery doesn't drain fast. But it also doesn't take a charger very quickly either. So unless you're putting a lot of miles on the vehicle between uses of the battery I can't see much advantage to having the truck charge the battery on the trailer.

They make a very small twelve volt trickle charger, it's just a couple of amps. One of these permanently installed in the battery box to be plugged in occasionally sounds to me would be perfect in your situation. The dump trailer I made will do about ten to twelve strong dumps of full loads without losing any power. It's got a deep cycle battery.

I like your idea on lights. Moby, my truck, has six tail lights. Two of them are the new diode types. But at fifty bucks a pop I'm holding off a bit to replace the other four.

I also used the new diode lights in the tool compartments. If you forget and leave them on they won't wear down the battery in a week.

A little trick of the trade. If you're using what around here we call boat lights, they're the oval sealed units. What I do to do the hole to hold them is simple and easy.

1. Lay out where you want the light.

2. Center punch two holes four and a quarter inches apart.

3. With a two and a half inch holesaw drill two holes using your center punch marks.

4. Cut out the piece between the holes with a saw or a torch.

5. Install your light.

What I like about these lights is they're easy to install. If they're bumped they push in instead of breaking. And they can take some real abuse.

The headache rack on Moby has six lights, all boat style. Two of them are the diode brake running lights. Two of them are clear for the back up switch on the truck so when I back up I get real light back there. And the other two are hooked to a switch on the dash for manual operation, like unloading after dark or reminding someone their brights are still on when they come up behind you.

In the bed I have six of the lights again. Four are running brake and two are back up. I like to be seen and I see it a necessity to have plenty of light when backing up in the dark.

[Gary_in_Indiana]

My breakaway doesn't have a charger. I have a trickle charger I use for my Goldwing Aspencade as well as a couple of commercial stand up chargers. I don't want to install the charger on the trailer when it's so convenient for the bike (read "I'm too cheap to buy another one" [img]/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif[/img] ).

I won't try to charge the trailer battery through the truck system as I only have a standard alternator on it and don't want to overload it. I can still run my trailer system off the truck power with one simple plug-in if I get caught with a dead trailer battery.

I agree with you on the pricing of LED's. I took mine off a Kenworth I was sending to Mexico and replaced them with conventional lights. I doubt I affected it's value, but know I sure dressed up my trailer a bunch. I'll convert the other lights as opportunities like that one arise. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif[/img]

I have no rack so extra light locations are limited. Having the back edge of the bed regularly be in contact with the ground and being driven over limits me even further. My bed is 22' of tread plate with a couple tire stops at the front, some 10,000 lb. tie downs welded in and a car dolley style swivel platform at the rear for towing a second vehicle.

Work lighting for me has to be limited to a magnetic base spotlight I plug into my tow light outlet on the trailer (I use tow lights on the second vehicle). I like your marine light idea. I just don't know how to utilize it on this project. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif[/img]

[Soundguy]

I would wager that the lights on the trailer are /will be drawing more current than will be used to charge the trailer battery.

If your alternator is 64+ amps, I don't see why there would be any problem. As the battery comes to a full charge, there will be very little draw.

Soundguy

<font color=blue>"I won't try to charge the trailer battery through the truck system as I only have a standard alternator on it and don't want to overload it. I can still run my trailer system off the truck power with one simple plug-in if I get caught with a dead trailer battery.
"