FWC Install- do you have to wire to the truck?

txmxer

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Joined
Feb 23, 2021
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10
Bear with me on the dumb questions. I’m an absolute newbie but have always wanted an fwc. Well the right deal struck at the worst time and I ended up pulling the trigger. But the camper is tucked away in my parents garage as I’m between moving states.

The camper is set up for solar, so my question is, what is the point of wiring into the truck battery? And if it’s just for the running/brake lights, can’t you just plug in like you would a trailer?

Pics of the camper tucked away:
 

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It is always nice to have a little charging coming from the truck, but not an absolute. To answer your question, you can use a trailer style plug in, and that is what I have done. I do have truck side charging, but most comes from my solar.

The truck has a bedside 7 pin harness that plugs into the truck wiring between the truck harness and the bumper mounted 7 pin female receptacle. My ATC Cougar is wired to a 7 pin male that plugs into the bed side receptacle. Pretty sure the plug-in harness is a Hopkins. Your local car parts store should have or be able to get one for your truck.

Most campers have just 3 wires, one 12VDC power ckt, one 12VDC running light ckt, and ground.
 
My Fleet doesn't have running lights, so I don't need a connection to the truck at all.

Since installing my own solar panels and controller, the FWC original battery separator has never worked as it should (it closes ok, but never opens the contactor.) I even bought a replacement unit, but it does the same thing. It's wired correctly, but even this retired electrical engineer can't figure out why.

I left the separator in circuit, but put a SPST switch in the sense line. As long as that is open the contacts don't close. Normally the solar panels keep the batteries charged very well. However, if I get days of heavy overcast and rain (fortunately infrequent in the southwest) I can close my bypass switch and charge my camper batteries from my engine alternator as I drive. Then I just need to remember to open the switch once I set up camp.
 
Judging from the plants near the garage door, you live someplace warm and sunny. If you only camp locally you might do fine with solar alone (how much solar do you have?). But it sure is nice to get charged up from driving on a dark rainy day. You arrive at your destination with guaranteed juice!!
 
Thank you all for the responses, I honeslty dont think (but dont know for sure) that I will drain the batteries too quickly. Most of my trips will include a lot of sun. I love to surf and beach camp. Moving back to Southern California helps. By the way, nestling that camper into that garage took a lot of finesse, God Bless my parents for letting their adult son steal their garage space, yet again.

I will do more research on my solar set up, I know it was installed/ordered through FWC. I still need to spend some time going through the camper, cleaning it up, detailing it, and installing the eye bolts on my truck.
 
i had 200w solar panels on the roof (atc, not fwc), with a 100 amp lithium battery, and not wiring other than the roof lights from the truck. worked great. i had a 12v fridge in the camper, and it worked fine. when at home, i insured the camper battery was charged up with 110 v from the house.
 

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