Breakaway Battery Charger is Only Showing 1.5 Volts Output
Question:
After finding out the hard way that my horse trailer 7 spade plug was wired a different color scheme than my truck 7 spade plug and it caused me t burn op the charger-giveaway was truck harness yellow means left turn light-yet on the trailer yell is connected to nothing. I found the their trailers ground is green and not black as most are. Anyway, I installed a new charger after checking what colors really went to what, and it only has 1.5 volt output. Is that correct? If you attach the charger to a fully charged battery how are you to know if its working, UNLESS you have a low volt meter and disconnect the battery, which I did. I thought the charger would be putting out at least 12 volts with low amps to charge the battery. I have confirmed that all connections are good and I have a full 12.7 volts going into charger.
asked by: Randy R
Helpful Expert Reply:
A breakaway battery charger such as # 2024-07 should be putting out 12 volts to the battery. Less than that could be an indication of a bad ground connection or a problem inside the charger. For the ground make sure it is connected to a clean and corrosion free bare metal surface.
The problem with the wire colors you mentioned is common. It is because there is actually no standard for trailer wire colors. You should always go by function. You can use the help article I have linked to the right. There are diagrams of the various trailer and vehicle side connectors. There are colors listed but ignore them and always wire by function.
Some battery chargers to have an indicator that will say if the battery is good or needs to be charged. But those are built into only certain breakaway systems and not available by themselves.
