Dual battery question

[V9x]

The fuse is essential, close to the battery. It doesn't protect the meter. It protects the car from a fire if the cable snags and shorts on the chassis. Even a 1A or 2A fuse would do.

1V over 5m ... sounds reasonable to me.

I thought someone would tell me that lol but I hoped it wouldn't be said : ) fires are scary so I'll play it safe . Thanks for the feed back.

Old tony,

can you tell me if it's a big job to do an electric brake control install ? Buying a van next week and I think ill have to install one before I head up north to Qld .

Cheers

 

[Old.Tony]

Another user here did one recently and we only had to verify which wire my controller tapped in to for the brake circuit. Here's some tips.

1) REALLY good cable. Run both lines, don't rely on earth from the chassis, and pass BOTH through the connector.

2) Put a 30A thermal breaker into the power for the brakes. A single brake draws about 3.5 (12" brakes - 10" draws about 3.3A per wheel), so a single axle needs 7A and a double axle needs about 14A delivered to the rear. It's actually a significant amount of power, so it needs a heavy cable so the cable doesn't overheat, but if it does, the thermal breaker is there to save the day.

3) Use a Tekonsha Prodigy P3 if your coin can stretch that far. If you can't, you'll eventually save up for one anyway. There simply isn't anything better. I've had people tell me "oh Guardian blah blah" ... "Redarc yadda yadda" ... let me tell you, I had a Redarc in my Commodore, paid $600 to have it fitted, and it was safer to have it turned down to the minimum so it was effectively turned off.

You can use a 7-pin trailer plug but I chose a 12-pin and ran my auxiliary power through that. I am going to go BACK to the 7-pin with Andersen plugs for my aux power - most vans these days have Anderson plugs to take power from the tug. You might consider asking them if they are fitting these and pre-wire your car for it too - again, you need decent-sized cable to cover the distance and a fuse/thermal breaker to protect it.

 

[V9x]

Another user here did one recently and we only had to verify which wire my controller tapped in to for the brake circuit. Here's some tips.

1) REALLY good cable. Run both lines, don't rely on earth from the chassis, and pass BOTH through the connector.

2) Put a 30A thermal breaker into the power for the brakes. A single brake draws about 3.5 (12" brakes - 10" draws about 3.3A per wheel), so a single axle needs 7A and a double axle needs about 14A delivered to the rear. It's actually a significant amount of power, so it needs a heavy cable so the cable doesn't overheat, but if it does, the thermal breaker is there to save the day.

3) Use a Tekonsha Prodigy P3 if your coin can stretch that far. If you can't, you'll eventually save up for one anyway. There simply isn't anything better. I've had people tell me "oh Guardian blah blah" ... "Redarc yadda yadda" ... let me tell you, I had a Redarc in my Commodore, paid $600 to have it fitted, and it was safer to have it turned down to the minimum so it was effectively turned off.

You can use a 7-pin trailer plug but I chose a 12-pin and ran my auxiliary power through that. I am going to go BACK to the 7-pin with Andersen plugs for my aux power - most vans these days have Anderson plugs to take power from the tug. You might consider asking them if they are fitting these and pre-wire your car for it too - again, you need decent-sized cable to cover the distance and a fuse/thermal breaker to protect it.

Thanks for the pointers mate. From what I have read the tekonsha are the best unit going , so I won't waste money buying rubbish then having to replace it later.

I will use 6b&s cable with a 20 amp breaker or probably a 10 amp (single axel) . I will try and find an install manual for the unit so I can get my head around how it works .

Hard part will be finding where to stick it , all the palaces I have seen people mount the units I already have stuff there , UHF , switches ect .

Cheers

 

[Old.Tony]

A 20A or 30A breaker will do, because if there's going to be a problem, the cable will easily draw hundreds of amps (direct short). Put something in that will take a triple axle van and you won't have to worry about that again (ever). 6B&S is ok for the long run especially since voltage drop on the brakes isn't a big deal (it's just an electromagnet).

It should be mounted somewhere that makes it easy to get to the manual override, which is sometimes handy and particularly with single-axle vans which tend to wander more than multi-axle trailers. A gentle pressure on that and the trailer settles.