Enclosed trailers are very handy when you need to go camping or traveling for a long time. These trailers can also be used to ship cargo and can also act as a portable shop for your on-the-wheels business.
However, the major issue with any RV owner is the blackout. For obvious reasons, you cannot keep the engine running to power your enclosed trailer for its lights, fans, and other electrical appliances. So, you will need a diesel generator to run your appliances. In this article, we will discuss wiring the generator for the enclosed trailer.
The enclosed trailer is a separate moving vehicle that gets attached to any tractor, truck, or car and moves along with it. Some trailers come directly with all the connections, while most of them need to be wired. Therefore, you must know the connection steps for the generator.
How To Wire An Enclosed Trailer For A Generator
Now, the items and steps that we are going to mention below are selected considering the standard diesel generator for the trailers. These generators are very powerful to light up your whole trailer.
You can also connect heavy equipment like AC, heater, ice-cream fridge, induction, and electric ovens. However, the genset may take an ample amount of space. Thus, you need to design the available space to keep your generator so that it doesn’t interfere with your other activities.
Things you will need
Before you understand the steps of how to wire an enclosed trailer for a generator, you will need to collect the supplies required for it. Following are the items that you will need for connecting the enclosed trailer to a generator.
- 30 Amps power cord with plug, 25 feet length
- Electrical cable hatch
- Romex 12-2 house wiring of 50 feet length
- Wire nuts
- Ferrules
- Putty or sealants
- 1-inch electrical flex conduit of 50 feet
- Conduit straps
- Circuit breaker box with two 15 Amp circuits
- Hole saw
- Wire stripper
- ¼ inch socket driven Electrical drill
- Plastic outlet boxes – 6 Nos.
- B NEMA 5-15 GFCI duplex outlet boxes – 6 Nos.
- Cover plates – 6 Nos.
- ¾ inch Self-drilling hex-washer-head screws– 100-piece box
- Sharp utility Knife
- Tester or Multimeter
Now that you have all the items you need, we can go to our next section where we will guide you on wiring the enclosed trailer.
Steps To Wire The Trailer For Generator
Follow the following steps and make sure you follow them as mentioned in the steps.
- Find a place inside the trailer to place your generator. You can fabricate little pedestals for your generators to lock the wheels. This will keep the generator fixed at one position. You can also buy self-locking generators from the market if you have a higher budget.
- The generator has a circuit breaker attached to it. So, you won’t require additional breakers but in case, you want some extra safety, place the 15 amps circuit breaker near to the generator and screw them into the trailer’s wall.
- Connect the cables from the Electrical cable hatch to the generator and main circuit breaker of the trailer. Place the power supply cord and run a short extension from the trailer and plug it into the generator.
- Now, measure the flex conduits according to your trailer requirements and cut them accordingly to fit the junction boxes. Screw the junction boxes at their place using the electric drill and self-drilling metal screws.
- Cut the Romex 12 inches longer than the conduit pieces and keep cutting for the total number of cable runs. Move thecables inside the conduit and run it through till both ends have 6 inches of Romex hanging.
- Move the cable inside the junction box and dangle it further. After the cables have reached the required position, screw them properly, and check for any loose connections.
- Now, strip the ¾ inch of the insulation cable and cut out 3 inches of the outer jacket. Use ferrules to insert the naked wires and club them together using a pincer. Repeat the process for all the cables. Use putty or exterior sealant to seal all the gaps after connecting the wires.
- Insert the 30 Amps cord with plug through the outside hatch into the RV and connect it to the breaker box initially installed near the generator. Screw all the bare wires into the ground bus and the cord.
- Connect the 30 Amp cord with a standard adaptor and to an outlet. Your trailer is now connected with the generator. Now, you can connect or power up your appliances with the trailer.
- Now, start the generator and check for supply in different sockets with a tester or a multi-meter.
So, these are the steps that you need to follow to wire an enclosed trailer for the generator. You can also check out help guide on the Thumpertalk forum. However, you must know that the items we have selected for the connection are suited to standard generator assembly for trucks and trailers.
If you have selected a generator with more horsepower and a bulky design, you may need to revisit the items and steps mentioned here. Extra items or modifications will be suited to the power rating of such a generator.
Moreover, it is always wise to purchase a piece of higher rating equipment. So, we advise you to purchase the items mentioned above based on the power rating of the generator.
Final words
So, now that you have read the whole article, we believe it will be quite easy for you to finally wire the enclosed trailer for generator. You can use high-level safety circuit breakers, switches, and safety putty to properly enclose all the bare wires and avoid electrocution or short-circuiting. Apart from this, you can also keep some cables handy to do electrical repairs.
