Dead TOAD Battery

[Siman00]

Hello. I'm a newbie with 4-down towing and have a problem. My tow vehicle is a 2016 Winnebago Spirit 31K. Two years ago I towed with a dolly on a long trip and everything worked fine. But I learned that there are aspects of dolly towing I don't like.

Last summer I decided that a Roadmaster tow bar and a Demco Duo braking system would meet my needs. My TOAD is a 2013 Hond CRV AWD. I had an installer recommended by eTrailer.com to install the system. As far as I know it worked just fine last year.

I'm now on day 5 ofa 42 day trip in the Northeast and am experiencing some problems.

The battery of the Toad is being fully discharged while towing. In addition, I cannot get 12 volts to the passenger side brake lights. I have 12 volts to the electrical plug at the front bumper of the car, but no further. Consequently, I have no brake light on the passenger side of the TOAD. I don't know if the two problems are related.

Any help or suggestions are appreciated.

[l1v3fr33ord1]

Siman00-

Do you have a voltmeter or 12-volt test light that you can use to test the signals on the coach and toad? If so, start at the coach hitch connector. Disconnect the umbilical and test the pins on the hitch connector for the correct signals. This diagram shows which signal should be on which pin.

[Morich]

Many things electrical require a slow seemingly tedious aproach to avoid overrunning some small obvious defect! I consdier a meter to be close to a required tool for RV!

What I would do is start at the trailer outlet on the RV, check each point for giving you the correct 12Volts when that item is turned on. Like brake light point when brakes pushed, turn signal when signal flashing, etc until all points are tested there.
That verifies that all the RV is working to get the voltages to that point.

You'll kick yourself if you go throught testing the car connection, the cra and tehther only to find there was a fuse blownb on the RV! So I work it a point at a time front to back!
Next plug in the tether and make sure the same signals are getting through the tether as well as look it over, especially at where the wires go into the plugs as that is a frequent wear point. Any bare wire sticking out? Fix it now to avoid it getting you next trip!


Once all forward is checked and known to work right, plug to the toad and see what is right or wrong and you can then begin to work on the car without confusion about where the problem is without all the confusing questions of RV, tether or car being involved!

No brake light on one side but not the other is almost certain to be a car problem as they are wired together. Consider a burned out bulb??
The battery charging is a different issue and has several different ways to be wired, so more info is needed there.

One way to narrow the problems is to connect all the points together after testing them and look at the toad battery voltage before starting any vehicle. then if the voltage from the RV is comming in right, that voltage on the toad should immediately jump up when the RV engine is started!
If you have a system where the Rv is to keep the toad battery up during use, you should see the voltage at the toad go up and down as the RV engine revs!

[tim myers]

I have a CRV, and the left turn signal and right turn signal both come on to provide the brake light. Now that might be because of the year of the auto, mine is a 2013. When disconnected from the RV the left and right torn signals are amber, but when connected to the RV the left and right brake lights become the left and right turn signals as well.



I would say you have two separate issues, but that is just a guess. I do not think they are related.



What kind if brake system do you have on your CRV? Also know that that my stock CRV battery was pretty weak and ran down easily. I replaced it with a group 24 size battery with a higher amperage. There is one circuit that I am supposed to pull the fuse to save power when being towed, I found a switch that decentralized the fuse and gave me a switch to turn that circuit off.

[tim myers]

With my set up I can run the max of 8 hours, run the CRV again and run another 4 hours with no issue, except that I am exhausted. When I do arrive at my destination, even if it is a stop over for the night, I run the CRV for 20 minutes or so to recharge the battery for the next day

[Siman00]

Tim, it sounds like we have the same symptoms. I'm wondering if I need to provide voltage from the RV to the battery of the TOAD??

[Morich]

Originally Posted by Siman00

Tim, it sounds like we have the same symptoms. I'm wondering if I need to provide voltage from the RV to the battery of the TOAD??

Whoops! I had missed the part about there being no Charge from the RV?
Is this at the install stage? I had assumed the wiring had been done and now had stopped working!

So maybe more details needed to be asked discussed? Part of the wiring of the toad has to deal with different battery use in the toad and that often has to go back to what year, make, and model of car for details as they vary from car to car.

Was this wired to keep the battery charged at one point and now that has failed or was it not set up to do that and the battery is now enough weaker that it can't handle the load? Perhaps it was working and you were taking shorter trips and now it fails on longer trips as the battery is used longer?

Maybe we need to start over and ask a few questions on how it was wired?
Do you have this outlet on the RV and is there 12 Volts on the pin 4 for "aux charging"?

Is that 12volt charging then connected to the toad battery through the tether?


I don't know what level of charge this would be and not likely meant to recharge a dead battery but more to maintain the level on a toad battery when that engine is not running.

[SanDogDewey]

I contemplated wiring power to the TOAD battery, but I found the wiring in most umbilicals is too small to support much of a load. Not wanting to run a separate pair of wires to the battery, I purchased a Battery Tender 4 amp Maintainer/Charger. I plan to plug it into the motor home when we get to our destination.

Recommend getting your battery load tested. I would think it would last 8 hours.

You may have a bad diode on your passenger side taillight, if that is how they wired it. Some installers put a dedicated bulb in the taillight housing. Just chase the signal from the umbilical to the taillight.

[Retired FF]

Refer to Morich: 12VDC from MH usually 20 amp maintains with braking system (I have Roadmaster Invisibrake), I used a AMAZON single pole inline diode at toad battery connection just to be completely isolated from toad feeding MH if cable is mistakenly still connected during toad start-up.

If wired correctly (using a diode inclusive aftermarket harness) taillight/brake/turn should be solely powered by motorhome. Remember connecting cable is TWO MALES, receivers are TWO FEMALES ... the connector plugs will be a MIRROR image!

[dave5131]

I have the exact same set up for my Buick Envision. Most likely it was installed incorrectly. My service provider installed a fuse kill switch so certain electronic components would not draw power while towing. The problem that one of your brake lights is not working is most likely installer error as well. Take it back! If it was done At Camping World you can go to any location across the country

[dkoldman]

I would check car mfg flat tow procedures. My vehicle is designed to consume power when in Flat Tow mode, it controls the steering as one thing off the top of my head.

For vehicle like that a Charge line is all you need and is very simple. $20 of parts and 30 minutes. I have one wire to connected to 7 pin connector and a auto resettable breaker right at the battery post. My battery is always being charged when my RV is running.

The other power I use beyond the Car's design is for the RVi Brake 3. I have dedicated 12vdc plug adapter to power the brakes system all while it is turned on and activated.