Hello HTW!

I've been doing a lot of reading, researching, fiddling and tweaking and my eyes have finally crossed and I've decided I need some "real world" input.

I'm playing with the idea of adding batteries and an inverter to my otherwise bone stock non-LQ trailer. I don't go off into the boonies and camp per se but I like to stay in my trailer at an arena for a multi-day barrel race. What I want to do is power some lights (12v), a small microwave and a fan for getting dressed in the morning without sweating to death. It's small but so is my trailer dressing room. I don't spend a lot of time in there typically. Eating, sleeping, and changing clothes usually.

I suppose my question is, is this even feasible? I don't have a lot of electrical experience but I can wire a box.

I'm also confused about charging the batteries. Can I change my current 6-round plug to a 7-pin and charge them through the truck (which already has a 7 pin)? Do I need some kind of charging apparatus to do that? How would I wire that on the battery end?

And, do I have this correct in my head? I would need a 12v fuse panel (wire coming from the battery to the box and out to the 12v lights?) and a 120v panel (wire from inverter to box out to outlets?)?  

I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row before I go pitch it to the banker at my house.

yeah it can be done,

First you need to find the wattage on all the things you want to be able to run.  Most small microwaves are around 1000w small fan 50-100watts, on the lighting I would run 12 volt DC lights for simplicity.  When your inverter is at idle it will consume power so its best to just turn the inverter on when you need it.  The fans would be good to have on DC also.  I would bet a 1500w inverter would be a good bet for you.  I run a 2400w in mine, but that was partially what I had available also.  My inverter also has a charger on it to charger the batteries.  Yes your truck can be changed out to a 7 with the constant DC power for the battery, what truck do you have?  many trucks already have this wire there.  You will want a inverter/charger so that it can control the rate of charging to the batteries.  If the batteries are charged to fast or too much they will get damaged.  Also with just having the 12v right to the battery alot of times if the batteries get real low they will want alot of charging current and they will blow the dc power fuse that feeds them on the truck.  Which both my fords have 30amp fuses feeding that circuit, which has been replaced with a 30amp auto closing circuit breaker.  I acutally have my inverter on the truck and have 120vac from the inverter run to the trailer and the control wires and big DC power cables running between, since there are 2 more deep cycle batteries on the trailer.  I can run off the truck batteries or the trailer ones.  for simplicity for you, you could put the inverter in the dressing room so your can plug your ac things right into it so you do not have to mess with the 120v side.  you would just have to deal with the dc, and you can get a dc power panel to distribute to lights and the fan.  It would not be too bad to setup the inverter and a few lights and fans.

jakefreese- I have a 00 Ford F250 Powerstroke. It's wired with a 7 plug already (two of them actually) but my trailer is a 6 plug. I think I've decided that I might just skip the charging side, save myself some gray hairs and Ms. Clairol, charge my batteries at home before I leave and bring my plug-in charger with me just in case. Somebody has a generator I can use.

wyndancer- Inverter. I don't really want to mess with shore power and all of that junk since I'm not trying to power a full-blown weekender. Just enough to eat hot food and not sweat profusely.

I have been offered two 6v golf cart batteries that I might try to use rather than 12v deep cycle. I read that they are preferable? Am I right?

Thanks for the input ya'll! I'm very excited about actually having POWER!!

since your truck is already to roll, you would just need to change the tail on the trailer.  That is not too big of a job at all, then you can have your batteries charging while your going down the road.  Also at worst case you can run your truck while your cooking just incase your trailer batteries got too low.  Since you do not want to mess with the shore power, finding a strait inverter would be simpler.  If you do change your trailer tail to a 7 to charge the batteries change your under hood 30a trailer charge fuse to a circuit breaker since you will get some occasional nuisance blown fuses from low battery levels and them wanting to suck down alot of power at the inital starting of charging.