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Member
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Location: Midland,Ohio | Is anyone having the same problem with their bighorn trailer? Our Lakota bighorn has never been able to run off the batteries. We can charge them and go camping within 3 hours they are dead!!!!! We bought new batteries and the same thing We can only camp where their is electric. No one can find out what is wrong. We bought this trailer new the first year the Long Horn model came out. Any ideas out there? |
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Veteran
Posts: 137
 
Location: Wicksburg, Al | Hi folks! There has to be a fix for this. Most any reputable dealer should be able to repair it. Please feel free to call us @ 877 694 5665 and speak to my service manager, or call AJ in warranty @ Lakota at 574 229 3272. We are a Lakota dealer. Call me on my cell if you need to @ 334 685 2636. DON SMITH DIXIE HORSE & MULE CO |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | check your refrigerator. Make sure it is not on DC . Also, some friges have a switch inside the door which they call a humidity control. It uses DC to heat up the door seal area to keep moisture out of the fridge. That will suck the life out of a battery in a short time.
One battery, if it is bad, can also suck the life out of a good battery. Pull both batteries, put on a smart charger and test after fully charged. Report back after investigating. |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | We have replaced both batteries and they only lasted less than a day. We went camping and before morning we had dead battries |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | It is at a trailer shop now and they cannot find anything wrong. But they said when u put the slide out it draw 30% of the battery The slide out is a dinette and sofa all in one slide |
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Veteran
Posts: 137
Location: Wicksburg, Al | TABORCOLE, call AJ at Lakota to get this handled ASAP. THX DON SMITH DIXIE HORSE & MULE CO |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | Got the trailer home and put slide out with batteries and it was slow going then went to put slide back in a it hardly moved but if you plug it in to electric the slides goes in and out just fine!, headed for the ohio state fair Monday with it and they have electric there so will do something when we get back. My husband says he is done with it |
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 Member
Posts: 43
Location: Close to the Heart of The Great Smokey Mtns. | Sent you a pm. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | What model fridge?
Is it just the slide out that doesn't work or is it everything in the trailer?
The slides generally need fully charged batteries to work properly. When you plug in the trailer, the converter is supplying some of the amperage /voltage that is needed...you are losing energy somewhere.....check the fridge again. |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | The fridge is turned off. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | Pull all the DC fuses. Re-install one at a time at see if any spark when you first push in. A spark indicates amps are flowing on that circuit. Then see what is on that circuit. You could also buy a cheap DC clamp on ammeter which will give you same info.
Is everything else working? fans, lights...maybe a defective fan is sucking out the juice. |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | We will try that thanks |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | you might also touch the slide out switch as the slide out motor and see if either is warm. |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | Well batteries were reading 2/3 charge and so I turned radio on today after 20 min total dead batteries. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | Do you have a multimeter? When you say the batteries were 2/3 charged, are you looking at the lights on your monitor?.
With the trailer plugged in, check the voltage reading at the battery. It should be between 13.2 and 14.4 volts. That would indicate that the converter is charging the battery. The monitor light are rally not a good indicator of the state of charge of the battery.
Let's start with the basics...make sure the batteries are being charged.It takes more than 12 volts to charge a 12 volt battery. What make is the converter? If it is a smart charger, the voltage to the batteries will be reduced to approximately 13.2 when the batteries are approaching full. To help isolate the problem, I would take the batteries out of the trailer and charge them with an automatic charger. When the batteries are fully charged, remove charger and let rest for around four hours. The batteries should show a voltage of around 12.8 volts. Check again 12 hours later. Voltage should be the same.
You can get a multimeter everywhere..Home Depot etc. Since the batteries are new, I don't think you need to do a load test. If you want to, Amazon has many but the $30.00 Schumacher is fine. It will simulate a load on the battery. After 10 secs. of use, the battery will jump back to proper voltage indicating that the battery condition is satisfactory.
It sounds like your converter is not properly charging the batteries.Anyway, after the batteries are fully charged, return them to the trailer and see how they perform with the trailer unplugged.
I use a BatteryMinder model 2012 available from Amazon...a little pricey or you can use a cheaper automatic charger.
Don't give up....you'll find the problem.
Multimeters are easy to use also...just read the directions. You will be reading DC voltage (12 volt range) Just place the probes on each battery terminal.
Good luck |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | http://www.batterystuff.com/kb/articles/battery-articles/battery-ba...
For a quick read on batteries |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | The trailer shop said all that was done!!, and all was good????? . The trailer looses all the batteries juice within a couple of hrs if u use anything in the camper. The batteries are new and the trailer is not plugged in when this happens. As long as u have electric everything works. We want to camp with no electric and that is when we have no juice. My moms trailer can go 5 or6 days just running on her batteries. Thanks for your input just thought we were missing something |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | Are all connections tight and clean...even at the converter and especially the ground to chassis? If not, the batteries will take forever to charge. Did you pull fuses and look for a spark on reinsertion? |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | you really do need to know the voltage that the converter is supplying to the batteries..get a meter and check. A defective converter may never be able to full charge a battery.
With regard to the trailer shop, if everything were fine, you wouldn't be having a problem.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 720
| Boeerdog- you've given some great advice here. Unfortunately, I think you misread the intent of the post. Whereas many come here for tech advice, the OP has come merely to cry about a Lakota. As we've all read, this is likely an easy fix. But I'm not sensing ay real desire to fix it, but rather let's just complain about it. Just my .02$ |
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Regular
Posts: 56
Location: Belchertown MA | |
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Regular
Posts: 56
Location: Belchertown MA | Sorry forgot to type in last one. Take the batteries out, fully charge them, have them load tested if good put back in. Shut everything in trailer off, put amp clamp on positive lead of battery, turn things on one at a time to see what is drawing to much amperage.The slide and jack will draw 25 to 40 amps but only for the 15 seconds that your using them and shouldn't drain the batteries.I did this with ours and found nothing drawing excessively. Researched batteries and found out that there are $60 deep cycle batteries and $120 and up ones and there's a reason for the price difference. Ours were brand new and tested good but of the cheaper variety, bought some good Interstates and haven't had a problem since.But ours would last a day to day and a half or so before going dead so you may have something drawing them down.I also changed all my lights to LEDs which dropped amp usage from 24.75 to 1.60 with the ceiling lights on |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | Horsey1 I am not here to complain about a Lakota trailer!!!!!!!! My family owns 3 Lakota trailers and love them we are just trying to figure out the problem without having to take the trailer all the way back to Bristol Ind..... |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. |
A $20.00 meter will get you closer to where you want to be. |
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Expert
Posts: 3853
 
Location: Vermont | You've got a parasitic continuous draw occurring somewhere in your electrical system...1st step is turn off all your breakers and see if there is still battery draw occurring |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 448
Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | Easy check for parasitic draw: disconnect positive lead from battery and then put multimeter leads between battery and disconnected cable. Most cheap multimeters will take up to 10 amps for a short period of time. If no draw, start replacing dc fuses one by one and note which circuits are using amps. Read multimeter instructions carefully to avoid damage to multimeter. Some clamp on meters for amp draw are available but a little pricey. You can also insert probes into empty fuse sockets and get the same results. Check with all switches off to start with. |
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Member
Posts: 23
Location: Midland,Ohio | Thank you everyone for ur help and ideas. |
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Member
Posts: 29
Location: Kenesaw, NE | Did you ever find what your problem was?? |
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Lakota Big Horn will not stay charged
