Electric Brake Controller Installation

[Matt - VNET Pro]

G'Day all,

Just purchased a Tekonsha P3 Prodigy Electric Brake Controller off eBay, yet to arrive but am looking at installing it myself. Has anyone installed one of these before or an Electric Brake Controller of any sort to there D22 STR Navara at all?

Also have a Jayco Eagle Camper on order, recommened to wire up a "Live Wire" or "Hot Wire" to the rear trailer plug on the ute also? Same thing has anyone wired something like this up before, from what I can gather it is just a heavy gage wire straight from my 2nd battery via a circuit breaker or fuse to pin 2 of my 7 pin flat plug to power fridge while driving?

Any help, info or your thoughts on either of these 2 installs would be much appreciated.....

Cheers Guys.

 

[Al]

can't help sorry but i wanna say ... nice camper! saw them at the camper show and i'd love one

 

[Old.Tony]

I had the mods done to my Commodore and I'm meeting the auto elec on Monday afternoon to push the same mods on my new Navara (yes, it's definitely here in Newcastle now and being outfitted).

Basically I had the flat 7-pin plug replaced with a flat 12-pin, and a matching plug on my caravan.

Pins 1 through 7 were standard. Pin 8 is a battery supply line and pin 10 is an earth. These are the ones we added a new line.

The standard (out of an auto electrician's handbook) electrical cable to run would be 4mm multistrand. Trouble is, pushing 4 wheel brakes at 5-6 amps each, this cable's going to heat up.

5mm is a lot better, but you can buy 6mm cable inside an insulating jacket - much like household wiring, but made for cars. The voltage drop over the length of the wire was negligible and the risk of it heating up is near zero.

I had a pair of thermal-resetting 30 Amp fuses bolted to the side of the engine bay and from these, ran the cables back into the cabin. One went up to the brake controller and the other ran straight to the rear. I don't think the one going to the brake controller had the negative (black) cable connected.

I don't know how the brake controller was wired in, but I imagine that there's a document that describes how to do that.

The standard 7 pin plug is wired like this:

1 - Left hand turn
2 - Reversing signal
3 - Earth return
4 - Right hand turn
5 - Service brakes
6 - Stop lamps
7 - Rear lamps, clearance & side marker lamps (parking lights)

Pin 5 takes the input from the brake controller.

I put the other cable's positive (red) to pin 8 and negative (black) to pin 10. My caravan has pin 8 wired through to the fridge, which I only run on 12V while we're driving (this way, I can refuel without turning off the fridge). Pin 10 of this plug can either go straight to the van's earth, or run it through to whatever inside.

When you mount that controller, take care to mount it reasonably close to horizontal. If it's the model I think it is, it's proportional and has to be mounted within a certain angle to horizontal so that the hall-effect sensor (that detects the vehicle's braking strength) actually works properly.

A tip: mount it somewhere not too far from the steering wheel. If your trailer/van ever starts to shimmy (wag, wander, fishtail, however - a side-to-side sway), a gentle tap on the override button brings it almost immediately back under control. You don't want to have to reach up under the dash to do that.

Hope that helps!

 

[Matt - VNET Pro]

Thanks old.tony helps me out a bit, will see what wiring/diagrams comes with the unit then will have a crack it for sure, cant be that hard.

 

[flashum1]

use 6mm for the output wire to trailer connection, no risk of it being inadequate. i think it is the blue wire off ur controller. then i'm pretty sure youll have red, black & white left. positive (accesory power), negative, and brake signal, picked up from stop light switch. key on, test light on one side of brake light switch, one side will have constant power, other will only have power when pedal is depressed, this is the one you want. power supply fuse size is dependant on amount of load on controller, i think it's like 30 amp for single braked trailer axle and 40 for tandem. use ONLY auto reset circuit breaker, NOTHING ELSE! very imposrtant!

 

[filobz]

Hi Matt,
I have installed brake controllers (3 times), the last time on my D40.
I am a sparkie by trade & I had to rewire the original setup installed at the caravan place,
you would not believe the mess they made.
I am also in Geelong, & happy to give you a hand.
Phil

 

[Matt - VNET Pro]

G'Day Phil,

Thanks for your offer but finally had a crack at it on Saturday morning, actually wasn't as bad as I thought, just that none of the wires that come with the unit are long enough so needed to extend all 4 of them slightly. Going by instructions that came with the unit, 4 wires, Black to positive (2nd) battery via Auto Reset circuit breaker, White to negative (2nd) battery, Blue to trailer plug & Red to cold side or brake switch at pedal............sound right?

My only concern was that it wasnt switched anywhere meaning using constant power of my 2nd battery, but after a while it switches off automatically I have noticed, when car switched off.

Do you work for yourself, what trading name you under? Actually am in the Data & Comms industry working for myself also, VNET Pro - Data & Communication , might cross paths in the near future.

Cheers, Matt

 

[Old.Tony]

That's one better than mine. I'm considering putting a 40 Amp relay in to deactivate the brake controller when the ignition is off.

I don't always disconnect from the van when camping, and this Christmas we'll be attached for 10 days straight. The battery might be a good one, but I am not taking changes when I'm 1,500km from home. Relay is going on before we leave for that trip!

 

[Laith]

I goto install one of these soon as I just ordered a Camprite camper trailer that has elec brakes..

Ive seen a few on eBay. What ones are best?

 

[Old.Tony]

I had a Redarc in my Commodore, the auto electrician swore it was the best thing since sliced bread and that'd I'd love using it.

What a lot of horse hockey.

I went back and complained that when I pressed the brake, the van's brakes came on at a single rate - if I braked hard, the van didn't help at all, and if I braked softly, the van pulled the Commodore up to a halt. There was nothing "proportional" about it - as far as I am concerned, and it might just be the way the thing was mounted but I don't give a rats, it ruined it for me - Redarc brake controllers are less than satisfactory.

I now have a Tekonsha Voyager. I did ask for the Hayman Reese proportional controller, but they have stopped making these and I didn't want to install something that was not going to be supported any more.

Do I regret it?

Not on your nelly. Come for a ride in my car while we're towing the van. You won't even know the van is there, it stops so smoothly behind the car.

What you need to do: tell the auto electrician that you want 3 things:

1) The brake controller circuit must be fed power through a 30 Amp thermal-reset circuit breaker.

2) The brake controller's circuit (between the circuit breaker and the brake controller) must have a 40Amp (or better) relay that only brings the circuit power on when the vehicle's ignition is in the ON (engine running) position

3) The wires for the brake controller MUST be 6mm all the way from front to rear. If you ever go to tow 2 axles, you'll have up to 6A per wheel = 24 amps drawn. The usual 4mm wire can only carry 30A so that wire's going to get too warm and can cause problems. 5mm wire is rated for 40A - you're still using over 50% of the wire's capacity. 6mm is rated at 50Amps - go in confidence that you're not going to have an issue with that part of the vehicle.

 

[Matt - VNET Pro]

Mine is a Tekonsha but a P3 Brake Controller purchased off ebay, came with a auto reset 30A circuit braker also. Seems the goods.

 

[Old.Tony]

The trick with getting the brake controller set up right is to follow the instructions, too.

Summarised:

1) On level ground, hook up the trailer/van/whatever
2) Start the vehicle
3) Press the brake pedal and turn the gain up to max
4) Turn the alignment knob until the indicator light starts changing colour
5) Release the brake
6) Wind the gain back to about a third
7) Take the thing out for a spin and bring the gain up to where it's comfortable

Done!

Just a safety reminder for everyone with trailer brakes (inertia, electric or proportional):

Make sure you have good tyres and the brakes aren't set too high. One guy was telling me to adjust the brakes to just below the point where the wheels locked up. If I did that, and it rained ... jackknife, and explain that one to the insurance company!

Make sure you don't have the trailer brakes set too aggressively, and always make sure your trailer's tyres are in good condition and inflated correctly. The only time you need the thing to work right is in an emergency and hopefully that won't happen, but in my experience, as soon as you let something slide just a little bit, it bites you.

 

[Laith]

I have a few of the Tekonsha P3's saved in my eBay.

I'll have to get one of those then.

 

[jayk]

Gday old tony, i was just wondering if there is any chance you could post a pic of where ur brake controller is mounted? i have ordered a tekonsha prodigy ( also is this better than p3 or is p3 better) . thanks for the info

james

 

[Old.Tony]

Gday old tony, i was just wondering if there is any chance you could post a pic of where ur brake controller is mounted? i have ordered a tekonsha prodigy ( also is this better than p3 or is p3 better) . thanks for the info

james

Sure can, attached is a pic of my whole dash, taken from the passenger seat.

I'm pretty sure my Voyager is the bottom-of-the-line proportional model. The P3 is a better version, you can compare them by clicking here to visit the Tekonsha web page on proportional controller products.

 

[the_bluester]

I actually set my brake cotroller (Tekonsha Voyager, a step below the prodigy) fairly agressively. If the trailer brakes are not near locking up in a maximum effort stop then you are missing braking power that might keep you out of a crash, BUT I also constantly fiddle with the power level according to the situation so if it rains I re check and reduce the power setting accordingly. If I am driving around town I reduce the power setting as well (Sounds wrong I know but using a friction based actuator to pull up friction material into contact means that they are more sensitive at low speed)

Setup of the various tekonshas differs, my routine with the voyager is

• Make initial level setting by applying the brakes (Brake lights actually) to trigger the unit and adjust the levelling control until the LED just begins to change
  
• Adjust the power setting to an arbritrary figure, around two thirds
  
• Drive off gently. Once on the road, at about 30KMH drag the trailer brakes manually for about 250M by enough to feel them to warm them up
  
• Make the power setting by increasing the power setting dial in stages and applying the trailer brakes manually to full power, ramp it up until they lock and then dial it back to a little past where they stop locking.
  
• Fiddle with the levelling control while gently braking to get the brakes to act how I want, my preference is for the trailer brakes to lead the car a little, that way you do not have to hammer the cars brakes to get the trailer brakes to come to the party.

I make that adjustment every time I get in and drive off apart from only making the arbritrary power setting to start with when the load changes, I fiddle with the settings as I drive to suit the conditions of the moment, so reduced power in the rain in town or on a loose surface to avoid locking the trailer up on a power setting I made based on high speed running on dry bitumen.

A Prodigy controller should be much simpler to set up, there is no levelling control as they are levelled gyroscopically, all you do is set the power level to a bit below the threshold of locking them up and then use the "Boost" setting to get the brakes to behave as you prefer with respect to leading or trailing what the car is doing.

I am only braking two wheels on a tandem at the moment, I am seriously thinking of going to braking all four but want to sort out a proportioning system so the rear axle is only braked to about 60/70% of the front one to avoid any chance of locking all four trailer wheels and having it get out of line.

 

[jayk]

thanks old tony, im pretty average at mechanical things, so thats where i will get mine put. much appreciated!

 

[jayk]

got a prodigy put in yesterday old tony. ta for the pics, thats exactly where mine is mounted.

 

[Old.Tony]

I went looking for a thread just on the brake controllers and I can't find one. Thought I'd swing by this old thread and revive it to say that I'm ditching the Voyager in favour of a Tekonsha Prodigy P3 - I'm tired of levelling the thing off each time. It causes a headache when I switch the vehicle off on a slope (eg camped on an incline) then have to take the van out on a heavily curved dirt track - it's scary stuff and I have to stick to below 60km/h.

 

[Laith]

I'm on my 2nd P3 and recon they are sh!t.

They look cool and have all the features but have had a few faults.

Both of mine would occasionally hold a volt or two on the trailer brakes even without the brake pedal depressed. Had to move the manual slide and release to drop back to no voltage. The brake lights come on during this. Both units both cars.

The other fault is that occasionally without warning when just touching the brakes lightly the controller sends full voltage to the trailer brakes causing them to lock up.

4WD Action done a test on a number of current units on the market and found that the P3 they tested did the 2nd fault I described.