How to Keep From Damaging Electrical Connection Between Lance Truck Bed Camper and 2019 Ford F-350  

I have a 2019 F350 and a 2020 Lance 1172 in-bed truck camper. The camper has a proprietary Lance connector, so when I bought it, they installed the mating proprietary Lance truck-side connector up near the front of the bed of the truck. The truck originally came equipped with a standard 7-blade in-bed connector intended for 5th wheel trailer connections. Since buying the camper, I added a DC-DC converter to charge my lithium batteries, which required adding a high-current DC connector in the truck bed, which I mounted near the Lance connector so that both connections could be made at the same time during camper load/unload. I have, too many times, started to pull out from under the camper and forgot to unplug the Lance connector. Ive done it enough that I should replace the connector, since it damages the camper-side plug. I dont like the Lance proprietary connector, since its harder to find, and is ridiculously expensive, so I am looking at replacing it with the standard 7-blade system instead. Replacing the camper-side is pretty straight forward - there are plenty of options out there that would simply throw away the Lance camper-side pigtail and replace it with a 7-blade camper-side pigtail. The question is on the truck-side. The options I can envision are: - 1 - ADD something like your Curt 5th Wheel/Gooseneck Custom Wiring Harness w/ 7-Pole Connector for Aluminum Beds - 10foot Long. Id probably need the 10foot vs. the 7foot because I need to go toward the front of the bed, so its located near my DC-DC Converter connector Anderson 120 Amp connector. The drawback here is Im adding yet another connector in the bed - which would now include the factory 7-blade, the Lance connector, plus this new one. - 2 - REPLACE the Lance with the same item as above. Now Id have two 7-blade connectors - one toward the front of the bed, the other toward the back. This would not, of course, help with my bone-head and camper-jarring tug on the connector when I forget to unplug the process, if you are not familiar with it, is you have to pull out about 2 or 3 feet, stop, unplug, and then pull out the rest of the way - all while the camper is up on stilts and very wobbly. - 3 - Instead of running permanent wiring, just add a 7-blade extension cord that is long enough to extend the existing 7-blade at the rear of the bed toward the front of the bed. That said, I am not sure what you have that fits that bill. I found an item online named Conntek 11110-024EX 7-Way Travel Trailer Extension Cord with Elbow Plug 2-Feet, which looks very close to what I would want, but its only 2foot long - and Id want at least 5. The advantage to this solution is it is a LOT easier to install, and if I soft-mounted the end such that it is bungee corded, if I again do the bone-head pulling out thing, Id get a soft notice that I forgot to unplug rather than the yank on the plug that also yanks the camper, which is wobbling on 4 legs while I pull in or out from under it. - 4 - Rather than have a new plug or extension cord, just put a longer camper-side pigtail on. The drawback here is that this would require two camper stops while connecting/disconnecting - one stop for the camper connector, and the other for the DC-DC converter connector. Another drawback is that it increases the chance for camper wiring to get pinned between the camper and the wheel well - which could be a big problem is the camper sat on the wire and pinched it, shorting it out. With option 3, the wiring would be suspended or tied up to the siderails, and not be in the way of the camper. So I guess Im saying that I prefer option 3, but dont know what is available that is longer than the 2foot version I found. Also, the Conntek one has a 90 degree connector - which I like, because it gets the cord out of the way of the camper, which is very important when loading. Because this is such a large camper, I have limited clearance between the camper and the truck. Attached photo shows what I have now. Do you have anything that fits this bill? - TLDR - I sometimes forget to disconnect wiring between Lance truck bed camper and 2019 F-350 so I'm looking for a way to replace and upgrade my current wiring situation to help prevent damaging it when I pull away from the camper.

asked by: Steve O