Les Izmore
Junior Ranger
Hi All!
The chances that what happened to us will happen to someone else is pretty small, but I thought I'd share a recent experience in case it might help someone else.
I'm pretty sure that before leaving the factory Cary or Craig had told me that if the breakaway cable was too long, to wrap it around the frame a time or two to shorten it up. But our first camping season in 2012 was short, and any memory of that had evaporated before the next camping season arrived.
We made a trip out to the Black Hills last May, and after driving down a long gravel road for many miles I noticed that our breakway cable had been dragging and was badly frayed (only a single strand was holding it together). We soon reached Custer, SD and looked for someplace to get it replaced. There was a trailer shop in town, but they were busy, so we agreed that I'd bring the trailer in the next day.
At camp that night it dawned on me that it wasn't necessary to take the whole trailer back into town, that I could just remove the pin from the breakaway switch. Being the forgetful type, I decided to put the assembly in our tow vehicle so that I'd be sure to drop it off the next morning when we went into town for coffee. That was around 6pm.
The next day I dropped it off, and we went off to hike while they worked their magic. We got back to the campground about 11 am. Soon after, the park ranger stopped by and told us that someone had seen smoke coming from under our trailer. I could not fathom a potential source for such an occurrence, so I thought perhaps he was bored and was just pulling our leg (the "Jolly Joker" routine). At the time everything seemed fine. Immediately after that, we picked up the new, beefier and shorter breakaway cable.
That evening our Dometic threw an error and shut down. I also noticed that when Alea had the galley light on and turned on the water pump that the light dimmed. There wasn't much to do about it, so we limped home by putting ice in the Dometic. We weren't able to power too much more than lights and the water pump for the rest of the trip. (We now own a small battery operated flashlight/lantern as a source of emergency cabin light that we can hang from the knob of our Fantastic Fan, which also is helpful in finding the latrine late at night:http://www.rei.com/product/878207/black-diamond-orbit-lantern)
We got home and called Camp-Inn. Cary suggested taking the battery to a local auto parts store to be tested. When we had pulled the breakaway switch pin the trailer's electric brakes were turned on, which put a HUGE load on the battery. Doing that for nearly 18 hours fried the battery. A new, self-installed battery set us back $230 (less the $8 or so that we got for recycling our old battery).
Things went well for a while, but then the same issues started popping up, most notably the Dometic shutting down. We called CI again, and this time it was theorized that the battery charger was bad. We had bought our CI from Poplar RV and it came with a good-for-nothing trailer hitch, and we discovered the battery charger was tucked away above the hitch. So the hitch had to come off and sure enough at the aft end of the charger were scorch marks on the underside of the trailer and some solidified silicone that had leaked from the charger. I removed the charger and found at the fore end of the charger that the underside of the trailer had been BADLY CHARRED.
I need to digress here for a minute. Talking with Craig, I learned that there is a design flaw in these chargers, that if they run continuously for 8-10 hours they overheat and fail. Usually this is due to the battery no longer being able to hold an adequate charge, so the lesson here is to have your battery tested at the start of every season. In our case things got REALLY HOT, due to the huge load caused by the brakes and the fact that we were on shore-power. So as fast as the brakes were being discharged, the battery charger was trying to recharge the battery.
In replacing our battery charger it was discovered that the original charger had been installed incorrectly, with an inline fuse being inaccessible because it had been installed under the water tank! That necessitated rewiring from the battery to the charger by adding a new wire through the cabin between the battery and the charger.
So after buying a new battery, new battery charger, new cable, various bits and pieces to reroute the charger wiring, having the brakes inspected and various other things, our frayed breakaway cable cost about $500.
So if your breakaway cable is too long, take up the slack by wrapping it around the frame or elsewhere to shorten it up.
And dump that silly receiver hitch from your trailer - you'll be dragging around about 25 fewer pounds. It was useful for holding our propeller hitch cover (which required me to create a wooden extension to clear the bumper), but little else.
-Steve
The chances that what happened to us will happen to someone else is pretty small, but I thought I'd share a recent experience in case it might help someone else.
I'm pretty sure that before leaving the factory Cary or Craig had told me that if the breakaway cable was too long, to wrap it around the frame a time or two to shorten it up. But our first camping season in 2012 was short, and any memory of that had evaporated before the next camping season arrived.
We made a trip out to the Black Hills last May, and after driving down a long gravel road for many miles I noticed that our breakway cable had been dragging and was badly frayed (only a single strand was holding it together). We soon reached Custer, SD and looked for someplace to get it replaced. There was a trailer shop in town, but they were busy, so we agreed that I'd bring the trailer in the next day.
At camp that night it dawned on me that it wasn't necessary to take the whole trailer back into town, that I could just remove the pin from the breakaway switch. Being the forgetful type, I decided to put the assembly in our tow vehicle so that I'd be sure to drop it off the next morning when we went into town for coffee. That was around 6pm.
The next day I dropped it off, and we went off to hike while they worked their magic. We got back to the campground about 11 am. Soon after, the park ranger stopped by and told us that someone had seen smoke coming from under our trailer. I could not fathom a potential source for such an occurrence, so I thought perhaps he was bored and was just pulling our leg (the "Jolly Joker" routine). At the time everything seemed fine. Immediately after that, we picked up the new, beefier and shorter breakaway cable.
That evening our Dometic threw an error and shut down. I also noticed that when Alea had the galley light on and turned on the water pump that the light dimmed. There wasn't much to do about it, so we limped home by putting ice in the Dometic. We weren't able to power too much more than lights and the water pump for the rest of the trip. (We now own a small battery operated flashlight/lantern as a source of emergency cabin light that we can hang from the knob of our Fantastic Fan, which also is helpful in finding the latrine late at night:http://www.rei.com/product/878207/black-diamond-orbit-lantern)
We got home and called Camp-Inn. Cary suggested taking the battery to a local auto parts store to be tested. When we had pulled the breakaway switch pin the trailer's electric brakes were turned on, which put a HUGE load on the battery. Doing that for nearly 18 hours fried the battery. A new, self-installed battery set us back $230 (less the $8 or so that we got for recycling our old battery).
Things went well for a while, but then the same issues started popping up, most notably the Dometic shutting down. We called CI again, and this time it was theorized that the battery charger was bad. We had bought our CI from Poplar RV and it came with a good-for-nothing trailer hitch, and we discovered the battery charger was tucked away above the hitch. So the hitch had to come off and sure enough at the aft end of the charger were scorch marks on the underside of the trailer and some solidified silicone that had leaked from the charger. I removed the charger and found at the fore end of the charger that the underside of the trailer had been BADLY CHARRED.
I need to digress here for a minute. Talking with Craig, I learned that there is a design flaw in these chargers, that if they run continuously for 8-10 hours they overheat and fail. Usually this is due to the battery no longer being able to hold an adequate charge, so the lesson here is to have your battery tested at the start of every season. In our case things got REALLY HOT, due to the huge load caused by the brakes and the fact that we were on shore-power. So as fast as the brakes were being discharged, the battery charger was trying to recharge the battery.
In replacing our battery charger it was discovered that the original charger had been installed incorrectly, with an inline fuse being inaccessible because it had been installed under the water tank! That necessitated rewiring from the battery to the charger by adding a new wire through the cabin between the battery and the charger.
So after buying a new battery, new battery charger, new cable, various bits and pieces to reroute the charger wiring, having the brakes inspected and various other things, our frayed breakaway cable cost about $500.
So if your breakaway cable is too long, take up the slack by wrapping it around the frame or elsewhere to shorten it up.
And dump that silly receiver hitch from your trailer - you'll be dragging around about 25 fewer pounds. It was useful for holding our propeller hitch cover (which required me to create a wooden extension to clear the bumper), but little else.
-Steve
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