I have tent camped for over 40 years, but had absolutely no experience with a camping trailer – I had never even stayed in one, but I got a Scamp 13 this year. I absolutely love it, but I have only been out 4 times (my first was a few nights in Itasca State Park right after I picked up my trailer last March).
I had it out two other times. Both were less than an easy two-day drive from home and I never had any problems.
I just returned from a trip of 29 nights – the furthest I went was Joshua Tree National Park in California. I had no problems until the last few days on the way home. Three days from home, my brake controller quit working; the first I noticed was when I car pulled out in front of me – I had to brake harder than usual and my trailer definitely "ran into" my truck. I stopped and unplugged the cord and plugged back in and everything worked fine for a while, but then the brakes stopped working again. When I stopped for gas I forgot to check the cord, but the brakes worked again -for a while. That night when I stopped, the trailer interior light went out. I had been running my fridge on 12-volt on the way home, but my last night out I noted it was no longer working and I moved everything into a small ice chest and shut off the fridge. I unplugged the cord and plugged it back in before I started out the next morning and my brakes worked fine, but they would quit, then start working again, and then quit.
My guess is that the connection to the trailer brakes and battery is messed up, but I can see nothing wrong with the plug or the plug receptacle, nor can I see anything under the dash that looks amiss. My trailer lights (marker lights, brake lights, etc.) all work. The connection is tight – it a little hard for me to unplug. Am I missing something? Do I need to hitch up my trailer (it’s parked in a storage lot) and haul it down to the trailer supply place where I got the controller and they installed it?
Or am I just being really dense about something?
Welcome, ur story sounds much like our tent to Scamp 13 years ago.
This issue could be a number of things, but it is really sounding like a ground issue. I would go through all the grounds on the trailer, starting with the grounds at the brakes and make sure they are solid. Many of us redo the ground connections front to back because when they decide to cause issues, its hard to find.
I don’t recommend running fridge on 12v while traveling unless you have a 6ga charge line or better running through the tow, in to the trailer and a very beefy alternator. The fridge, light issue at end of day may have been a dead battery from pulling with fridge on 12v.
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Thanks! I will see if the guys at my storage (it's sales, storage, and a shop) will look at it - I can't do that kind of stuff any more, but I appreciate the info - better than going in blind I think.
NewScamper
First understand that the battery on the trailer has nothing to do with the brakes, with the uncommon exception of a brake-away switch that uses the trailer's battery when, and only when, the trailer comes unhitched and the plug is pulled activating the switch. The trailer's brakes get power from the tow vehicle. Therefore any problem you have with the trailer's battery, the interior lights failing, etc, is not related to the brake failure (but is likely caused by running the fridge on 12 volts for too long).
Absolutely take it back to where the brake controller was installed. There are many possible causes, some on the tow vehicle and some on the trailer. They need to verify that the tow vehicle is OK, and hopefully are also qualified to locate any problems on the trailer. A bad ground like Greg said is a likely problem. Its possible that the ground (AKA negative) side of the power supply is bad (on either the tow veh or trailer), and the only connection left is through the hitch ball. This will make an electrical connection to the frame, and therefore to the brakes (if the rest of the wiring is OK), but it will be a very intermittent connection. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it will not, and often it will work but with added resistance that will lessen the power supplied to the brakes. But this would also cause the running lights to flicker so I would sooner guess a bad ground on the brake wiring alone.
You have to test each link in the chain from the tow vehicle, wiring to the brake controller, the controller itself, the wiring to the trailer plug, the wiring on the trailer, and the brakes themselves including the magnets.