[VAC] Re: Battery question

[schuetzen - RKBA! <chasm@xxxxxxxxx>]

wow!
that is weird!
after all, the only wire I was talking about was the CHARGING LINE.  and that
does not even have to go thru the usual round plug.  all of those wires are
"messenger" lines and can be multi strand 14ga if you want, or smaller.  They do
not carry great amounts of current.  nor do what they activate require a lot of
juice.

Please, lets reduce the level of panic in our voices here and calmly talk about
a Battery charging line which has nothing to do with safety. 
 and not about lines which ARE involved in safety.
I fully agree on using the usual wiring which is commonly webbed and is coated
in different colors and is of 16ga or 14ga if you are lucky, for the umbilical,
etc.  In fact, between my back bumper and the "black"? line connection on the
round 7 pin, I choke down from the 8 ga or whatever I bought where it terminates
on my bumper, to the max size stranded that the plug will take. the umbilical is
a standard round cable with what appears to be a mess of 12ga stranded which I
bought from you Andy or from the AS dealer here in Houston.  In fact, I plan to
make another, longer umbilical so that my truck can stand off from the trailer
and still power it.

Point is Andy, I am just as concerned about safety as you are and have said
NOTHING about the messenger wiring such as comes from the brake controller, etc
and which was installed on this truck by a past dealer for AS since the early
60s in accordance with the instructions of Hayes.

and by the way, if anyone needs maintenance on an AS product and you are near
Houston, (forget the people in Sealy PLEASE) I suggest that you contact Bob
Jones RV (bobjones@hotmail.com) in the vicinity of Hobby Airport. 

I hope that this satisfies everyone with my mutual concern for safety.
I never tow my trailer without full batteries ON the trailer which power the
breakaway switch and the turn signals and brake lights, etc.  

I am a long time shooter and a certified shooting instructor in most of the
disciplines and I know safety.  As an officer in the ARmy, I had to know safety
to protect the troops whose training I was overseeing virtually every day once I
returned from RVN.  iow, I am very safety conscious.  I do not respond well to
panic or screaming emails implying that I am talking about an unsafe practice.
I censured an individual on another AS list about carrying 1lb propane bottles
in a sewage hose storage tube suspended below the belly of a trailer, as being
an unsafe practice.  I know what is safe and what is irresponsible.  

My talking about single wire usage to transmit charging voltage to the trailer's
batteries is NOT unsafe.  Finally, I have talked with a couple of journeymen
electricians (Houston uses the National Code but with still greater
restrictions) and they verify what I was taught which is that stranded wire has
higher impedance or resistance than does single strand when compared in equal
guages.  iow, to get the same amount of resistance to a single strand 8 ga, you
would have to have ABOUT 6 ga stranded.

I am not going to discuss this further as I did not make my comment for any
reason other than to say, that to get the most amount of DC Voltage the 25ft
from your truck's batteries to the umbilical on the back plane of your tow
vehicle, you need to use as Low Resistance wiring as possible and as Large guage
as possible.  I do resent being misconstrued and misinterpreted.

Finally, I was an Airstream Mechanic for two years while I worked my way thru
school to complete my PhD after leaving the USArmy back in the early 70s.  I am
not totally ignorant of how anything is done on any trailer much less an
Airstream as I have done virtually all that can be done on a Streamer up to
rebuilding a 50% wreck from the rear forward or the middle back shall we say.

enough and an end to it.


--
Charles L Hamilton,  chasm@schuetzen.net  Houston, TX
WBCCI #1130  VAC   S*M*A*R*T
'76 Sovereign