M101A2 - Electrical Setup

Hey guys!

Has anyone placed extra batteries inside these trailers to run camping gear and lights, etc.

Is there a way to have your trailer lighting harness charge from your tow vehicle?

Like Harley, I plan to run a water pump and such.

No hot wire in the plug. You could probably add one. The tractors have a hot wire in the plug on the porch.

I have considered adding an extra battery on the trailer for when I'm out camping, but have yet to make this modification.

As recovry4x4 mentioned, you can add a charger easily enough IF you retain the original wiring harness (rewired with a 7 pin connector instead of a 4 pin) and a 7 pin connector on your tow vehicle that is wired for it (providing you have a tow package or wired it in yourself). It would be as easy and finding another wire in the original harness (blackout lights come to mind). You would have to wire that particular re-tasked wire to the appropriate pin of the 7 pin connector on the trailer and pull the packard connector underneath the trailer and reroute it to the trickle charger.

Excellent! I am ashamed to admit I knew nothing about trailer wiring before I bought this M101A2. My jeep and now the trailer were both rewired for 4 flats... but with this knowledge and a trip to Northern, I can buy 7 way adapters and I will only have to run the power wire on the jeep as well as the trailer harness...

Thanks for the knowledge. With a tip or two from guys like you, GOOGLE becomes an amazing tool.

What did we do before Google? Not nearly as many sweet trailer builds I bet

Also consider a solar panel. They have come along way and can assist greatly in long campouts.

Thanks! Do you know anything about "dual" power, i.e. tow vehicle battery and solar panel wired together? I assume the solar kits have a little " controller" of some kind that regulates the charge?

What would I even google? Portable solar?

derekrayhall said:

Hey guys!

Has anyone placed extra batteries inside these trailers to run camping gear and lights, etc.

Is there a way to have your trailer lighting harness charge from your tow vehicle?

Like Harley, I plan to run a water pump and such.

Click to expand...

There is a guy up in Minn that sells a great little system that charges from the tow vehicle on the fly. It will do 12v/24v and 24v/36v dual systems too! I have one on my boat to handle both crank and trolling motor batteries simultaneously, and NEVER have to hook it up when I get home... batteries always hot when I hit the water also. I plan on installing on both projects I am about to undertake. I have an M101A1 and a M1102 I want to build into camp trailers. I believe I will include an auxilliary input that I can use to hook solar into the unit while on site and disconnected. What do you think?

http://www.stayncharge.com/products.php?cat=7

Forgot to add that this system comes with a 7 pin round connector that splits the last pair off for the hookup to the onboard harness separate from the lights. You can check it out on the site.

I've done this a couple of ways off the truck alternator. One way is what blybrook describes. I had to put a relay and fuse into the power dist. box under the hood of the truck and then tie into that line with the "trailer tow battery" line on the 7-pin connector.

The other way, which will give a faster charge, is to get something like a Shure Power multi battery isolator, which is just a pair of big honkin' power diodes with cooling fins. Hang the isolator off the alternator, through a fuse, then back directly to the trailer battery with as be a wire as you can use. I use welding cable.

I honestly don't know whether the alternator does the charge controlling or if you need a separate one. It seems to me the alternator would cook the starting battery if it did not do charge control somehow. I should learn more about that. Anybody more knowledgeable have advice on that?

The solar panel may need an isolator if it does not come with one. Many of them do come with one. The solar panel may or may not need a charge controller depending on the power the panel is capable of. I'm in no way advocating you buy from We$t Marine, too spendy for me, but they have a good explanation on when you need a charge controller for solar panel charging:

google this phrase:

The West Advisor: Charging with Solar Panels - West Marine

PS If anyone wants to try an isolator, I have a spare one, a Shure Power model 1202 they can have for price of shipping...