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Topic ClosedR-Pod Brakes Broke
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podwerkz View Drop Down
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Posts: 966 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: R-Pod Brakes Broke
    Posted: 09 Mar 2021 at 7:58pm
Well not really...but on my last trip I had one side working...but not the other side. 

Of course not much I could do on the road but take it easy, and reduce the gain on the brake controller. 

It was only a 3 day trip and mostly highway use, not intercity panic stops...

Anyway, fast forward to this:

When I returned home, I began the frustrating process of trying to figure out what was wrong. 

Those POS 'scotchblocks' caused me a half day of trouble-shooting and then two more half-days of stripping out the old and putting in the new. 

I stripped out all the old POS brake wiring and re-installed some good stuff, and I soldered EVERYTHING. Both brakes work fine now...after two days of crawling around on the ground underneath the r-pod up on jackstands. 
 
The problem turned out to be this one in particular, hanging off the left side brake, and here is what I found:

Even though it looks good, there is continuity from the green wire to ONE of the other wires, but not the other wire. This is the 'ground' pair, where it splits off from the left side electric brake, feeding the right side electric brake. 

So if you end up with the left brake heating up and the right side still cold....suspect the 'scotchblocks'!
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Leo B View Drop Down
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Posts: 4508 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 5:45am
Great info! We had that happen when we were out in west Kansas, had to repair them on the road. That was the second time for us, had the same thing happen on the way home from Cape Hatteras one time, we hit some road debris which flipped up an cut the "little green wire".
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 7:10am
+2. Those insulation displacement connectors should be outlawed for critical safety equipment. Totally unreliable.

Even after I completely replaced my brakes, drums, and backing plates and reworked all the connections I was still getting more action on my left brake than my right, so I rewired them in series and turned my brake controller gain up. The problem with parallel operation is one will always take more current than the other and actuate more aggressively. In series they are forced to be the same, and either you will have both brakes work or neither, so you can’t get that squirrelly one sided action and it’s easier to troubleshoot.
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podwerkz View Drop Down
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Posts: 966 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 9:45am
Hmm.....I never thought about wiring them in series....I have a variable power supply that I use to diagnose electric brakes (I have two trailers with electric brakes) and it only takes about 2-4 volts to begin to have braking action, and by about 6 volts they are beginning to grip pretty firmly. 

So it makes sense that half of about 12 volts (6 volts to each brake in series) would be enough to provide the full braking action needed in most cases. 
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 10:18am
Yep, works that way for me, about 6V to each magnet. That being said, as it is not an industry standard I am not recommending it, just sayin’ it works.

Guess the standard theory is that it’s better to have one trailer brake than none if you get an open circuit, but having had only one trailer brake on a wet windy mountain road before, I disagree.

We also had an old Jeep CJ once that had a bad brake proportioning valve. I wanted to tow it but my wife decided to be adventurous and drive it from MD to NC when it went bad. She pulled off and called me to come get her, said the jeep was undrivable. When I got there two hours later she was still sitting in it, white as a ghost. I said let me try to get it somewhere where we could leave it till I could come back and tow it to NC. She was right, I couldn’t keep it on the road if I used the brakes, it would yank it’s wheel out of my hands randomly. Since then I’ve been really fussy about keeping the brakes in all my vehicles balanced and functioning properly.
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Pod_Geek View Drop Down
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Posts: 260 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 10:43am
Geez, I'm starting to think that one has to be a combination vehicle mechanic/electrician to own and maintain an RV.
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StephenH View Drop Down
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Posts: 6290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 12:24pm
One does not need to be a mechanic/electrician at first. There is so much information available as well as YouTube videos that are very helpful. It is like having  a very knowledgeable friend who is willing to help at any time, day or night.
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lostagain View Drop Down
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Posts: 2587 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 12:54pm
What is definitely needed is a bit of mechanical skills and a case of obsessive compulsive puttering disorder [OCPD].  +1 to StephenH's comment about youtube.  
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podwerkz View Drop Down
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Posts: 966 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 2:03pm
Originally posted by Pod_Geek

Geez, I'm starting to think that one has to be a combination vehicle mechanic/electrician to own and maintain an RV.

Bingo!

Give that man a SEE-GAR!

Owning one but paying others to maintain and repair it is not an option for me. 

Cool
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Mar 2021 at 5:15pm
I can’t afford someone to fix mine for me either.

The problem with YT is that a lot of what’s on there is either wrong, unnecessary, or skewed toward a particular product. So you still have to have some reasonable knowledge base to filter out the nonsense. One red flag is if comments are turned off. Gotta wonder why...
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