Electric brake challenges

R

Ron on Meander

New member
I'm having problems with my electric brakes on my AZ loader tandem trailer. brakes have been serviced and are clean and properly adjusted.
Is there anyone who could shed some light on the following problems.

1) The electric actuators in the drum all activate but do not apply enough force to actually brake the trailer. I can barely feel the effect of the trailer brakes.

2) Grounds have all been checked and seem to be good. There is a voltage drop of about 3 volts between the truck connection and the brake actuator. Truck 12.8 and actuator 9.5-9.7 volts depending on the wheel. Is this amount of drop normal? Or, could this be the problem?

Thanks for your help.
Ron
 
Ron,

Three volts is way too much voltage drop. Rule of thumb is 0.1v for any connector and moderate length of wire. Voltage drop should be checked under load. Sounds like you have a bad connection.

Don
 
Ron,

This may sound dumb, but doesn't the controller under your dash vary the brake pressure by the voltage variation? Or is it Amps? Or do you not have the variable controller mounted under the dash?

Does your system work by means of a little box under the dash with a sort of "penulum" inside to sense the slowing down of the tow vehicle?

I had a controller on my old '89 GMC that drove me nuts until I figured out that the position of the controller box could be bumped and/or nudged forward and backward so that the little pendulum inside would leave the trailer brakes "on" all the time, incompletely "off". ONly when I accidently nudged it back to the "level" position did it work correctly.

Just a thought.

John
 
One of the reasons that electric brakes have not been utalized on trailers which are dunked regullary (especially salt water) is that there will be some corrosion and thus voltage drop.

This is why some folks have gone with electric over hydraulic, where the "electric" is confined to dry areas.

Even with the modern magnetic brakes, and epoxy potted electrical components, moisture creeps in. I don't know what the length of time to expect, but I have been told that 3 years is about it with trailers which are dunked.
 
Thanks for the help guys.
Dr.John, I do have the cab controller and it does vary the brake pressure. It does seem to be working properly. We are going to change the wire from the truck to the brakes as a first step. It seems the most likely culprit. I hope so, cause we are leaving tomorrow for the 1500 km drive to Prince Rupert. We are going to drop Meander in the chuck there and cruise back down to Vancouver over the next three weeks. Should be fun. Just have to get those darn brakes working.
Thanks again for your help.
Ron
 
OK, here's a problem I've had with the electric/hydraulic brakes on Journey On's trailer, and (I hope,) the solution. Remember, everything in the water is hydraulic, exactly the same as surge brakes. No electric components under water.

The in-cab Voyager brake controller has a gain setting, which is a dial on the side of the controller. Hard to see where it's set. Needs to be adjusted up or down to get enough stopping power on the trailer. Apparently control signal is used by the trailer actuator in conjunction with the 12 V feed (separate line) to run the pump at a higher or lower pressure to actuate the trailer brakes.

However, I blew out a couple of fuses which feed the 12 v power to the trailer. Finally figured out that I had turned up the gain on the trailer brakes too high, thus feeding too much 12 V current to the trailer actuator, blowing out the 12 V fuse (not the signal from the controller.) Have to turn the gain down when the boat is off the trailer, and up again when the boat is loaded. Marked the correct settings with finger nail polish.

So the truck controller setting can be either too high or too low. Too high blows fuses, too low doesn't drive the brakes hard enough. I still think electric/hydraulic brakes are great, they just need some thought.

They don’t carry the Ford cartridge fuses in Canada. Down to my last fuse.


Boris
 
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