Emergency Brakes

[heagle52]

Recently I was having a problem keeping the battery charged. Several times it was charged for 24 hours and then unhooked the shore power from the trailer. Would go back and check and battery was charged but the next day the battery was dead and no lights would work.
Finaly figured out that the last time I unhooked the emergency brake cable was pulled just enough to engage the emergency brakes.

My question is with all the time that the battery was charging with the emergency brakes on will this have any effect on the brakes themselves?

[LukeS]

Agreed, learned a hard lesson with minimal loss and easy fix.

[B_O__Plenty]

LukeS wrote:
I was in a mindset that pulling the breakaway switch would engage the electric brakes and make the trailer stable. Just like engaging air brakes on a rig. Went out last weekend and found out that the electrical circuit gets hot and something has to give. What gave was the pin melting and the front stayed inbetween contacts. Was in a predicament but fortunately the brakes were released and made it home. Did not blow fuse or brake controller in cab.
Talked to a tech and basically best thing to do is chalk the wheels unless you can pull the pin engage the brakes and then quick disconnect the battery and brakes stay engaged not sure. Shore power then takes over 12 and 120 volt in trailer but does not charge battery theory only. Lessoned learned for me could have been worse as noted by others.

The brakes will only stay engaged if they have electric power. The battery energizes the magnets which put pressure on the brake shores. No power, no magnet. They are emergency brakes only and should be used as such. Get a set of wheel chocks and use them when parked.

B.O.

[LukeS]

I was in a mindset that pulling the breakaway switch would engage the electric brakes and make the trailer stable. Just like engaging air brakes on a rig. Went out last weekend and found out that the electrical circuit gets hot and something has to give. What gave was the pin melting and the front stayed inbetween contacts. Was in a predicament but fortunately the brakes were released and made it home. Did not blow fuse or brake controller in cab.
Talked to a tech and basically best thing to do is chalk the wheels unless you can pull the pin engage the brakes and then quick disconnect the battery and brakes stay engaged not sure. Shore power then takes over 12 and 120 volt in trailer but does not charge battery theory only. Lessoned learned for me could have been worse as noted by others.

[Vulcaneer]

It really depends on a number of things. But leaving the e-brake pin out, over time, could damage the brake circuit, or the magnets. Or the battery.

Leaving the brake pin pulled while charging the battery very well increases the chances of damaging the brake system. The constant load on the magnets is not a good thing.

Best to try them out to see if they are working as they should. If they do...You are good. If not...then you have work to do.

[Ed9824v]

I made that mistake years ago on a pull trailer and everything worked perfect,was leaving for vacation after the grave yard shift and left the pin out and came home and all was good. I think as long as the magnets are in contact with metal they will not get fried from the prolonged energization. The brakes themselves do nothing till the disk forces the energized magnetic puck to pull the pads open
I think you are good to go amy have taken some long term life out of the batteries though.

[ryanw821]

I have heard it can overheat and damage the magnets in the brakes. No first hand experience with this, but I've seen it mentioned here on the forums before.