I've written a few posts about visiting my friend in Ellijay that lives at the Coosawattee River Resort. Karen lives on a little strip of land, no wider than a normal RV spot at a campground and there was no room for my trailer there, so I left it at her land just outside of town and slept in the van.
I'd found that there was a phantom draw on my battery power that was depleting my battery within a day of getting it fully charged. I had the battery tested twice at 2 different Wal Marts and they assured me it was still a good battery, and that it just needed charged up. Which I did daily.
Anyway, Karen, Robert and I all read the manual trying to figure out just where the draw might be. I called Jayco, the manufacturer of my trailer and they gave me the name of a repair place about 30 miles away, but it was Memorial Day weekend and so I was going to wait until Tuesday to take it in. I even bought a second battery and a generator just so I didn't get caught somewhere without any source of power.
Quite by accident, when Robert was wiring the second battery to the trailer, he touched the little box thingy attached to the bottom of the trailer tongue that the break away brake control line plugs into and it was very hot. It seems that even when the trailer was unhooked, if the line was not plugged in, the trailer was doing what it was supposed to do and applying the brakes. So for days, it sat there, going nowhere, with the brakes being applied. Robert plugged the line back into the box and sure enough, within an hour the box had cooled down and the meter quit showing a phantom draw.
This would have been good information to have in the manual though we concentrated on the parts that had to do with the electrical appliances and never even considered the braking system. Another lesson learned.
Peace, Love and Happy Accidents
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