Ready Brake users

willald wrote:

schwartzworld wrote:
Lots of good ideas here.

I'll add one more. I just wired up my 2010 Honda CRV for toad duty. The Ready Brake is pulling the brake pedal, of course, so the car would be turning on the brake lights at the same time the RV is sending a brake light signal too. I cut the hot side of the brake light wire at the switch and added a relay. Roadmaster has this in a kit form but wants $20 to $30 for it. You can make the same thing from Amazon for less than $15. The Roadmaster kit "connects" the brake light switch to the stock wiring when the relay is on. I didn't like that either so I went with the fail safe method. When the relay is off the brake light switch is connected to the stock wiring. The relay I used is a DPDT 30 AMP unit. When the relay is on, the brake light switch is disconnected from the stock wiring but is connected to the other output on the relay. I set my car up with 6 pin socket, 4 for the lights, one for the charge line and 1 for the electric brake line. I don't need electric brakes on the car. My RV doesn't have an elelctric brake controller. I sent the output from the relay (when it's on) down the wire that is normally associated with the electric brakes. Under the dashboard of the RV I found the wire and added a T tap and a LED light. When the car is setup to be towed there is a switch that not only turns on the relay but also disconnects the fuse that we Honda CRV owners have to pull. The outout of the brake light switch now goes to the dashboard indicator in the RV. I can see if the brakes are working or sticking.

Fred

I agree that its a really good idea to have the warning indicator on your MH dashboard be powered directly off your toad's brake pedal, instead off from the Readybrake Actuator.

However, I found a way to do such with much, much less intrusion on the car's electrical system. I did it this way:

Purchased a trailer light wiring isolation kit/unit like THIS one. Installed it in trunk of car (under a panel), and wired it to the battery (using included fuse) and ground like instructions indicate. Then, run eithr the left or right turn wire (either will work) from the flat four connector of this unit, to the wire going back to the MH's LED indicator on the dash. Then, connect the red stop light sensor wire from this unit to the wire going to brake lights on car's tail light, using one of the provided wire taps. Make sure you tap into your car's brake light wire, BEFORE that wire goes into any diode you may have installed when doing your other taillight wiring.

Thats it, you're done. Now, any time brake pedal is engaged, pressed on toad vehilce, the LED indicator on your MH dash will light up.

Beauty of this approach is, it keeps your wiring to the MH LED indicator totally isolated from your toad vehicle, and is much less intrusive on the toad's electrical system. If there's ever a short in the wire going to the LED, all it will do (at most) is trip the fuse included in this trailer wiring kit. Will not damage anything in the toad's electrical system, nor blow any fuses in the toad. Also, I found it much easier to access the necessary wiring in the trunk and rear tail lights for this appraoch, than it would have been to tap into any wiring, relays around the brake pedal inside the toad.