Electrical question

Electrical question. I have a 2012 Tacoma and use it to tow my homemade teardrop trailer. I would like to be able to charge the on board 12V battery through the standard 7 pin trailer hook up. My question is do I need a voltage regulator specifically for the trailer battery? I obviously want to avoid overcharging the trailer battery and am not sure the truck voltage regulator will do that. I wasn't able to get a definitive answer from my local Toyota dealer. If I do need a separate voltage regulator exactly what do I need. Thanks for any input anyone might have.

 

The charge port doesn’t look at state of charge of the RV battery, the alternator output is based on the vehicles battery state of charge. Normally, the output of the alternator will be enough to overcome the internal resistance of the RV battery to keep it topped off and you run no risk of overcharging the battery. You shouldn’t need a separate voltage regulator unless the rv battery is completely dead and you try and bring it back to life.

 

Yes this