Vehicle Side Wiring Question

Question

I have a wiring question. I am getting ready to hard wire up my Town And Country for towing with a brake controller.

Here is a pic of the parts to set the stage for my question.

I am going to be using the powered converter for the tail lights... mostly to protect the car wiring. This powered converter connects to the battery and has a fuse in between the battery and the converter. This converter is also grounded.

I intend to just cut the 4 pole connector off and wire up the 7 way plug. My question is the ground.

Is the ground coming out of the converter going to be good enough for the 7 way... or should I run the ground coming out of the 7 way separately to the vehicle chassis and not rely on the ground coming out of the converter?

Maybe I am over-thinking this but I want to be 100% sure.

Here is what got me thinking about this...

This image from e-trailer is used to convert a 4 flat to a 7 way flat RV plug. Notice that the adaptor terminates the ground from the 4 way flat and uses a separate ground that goes directly to the chassis?

Should I follow this same lead, terminate the ground from 4 way flat and run a separate ground from the 7 pole?

Thanks!

Jeremiah

carringb · Answer

I would ground the 7-way directly, because the converter may not be sized to also handle trailer brakes. You will probably still have to the ground the converter as well to make it work.

If you are only using the light functions, and not trailer brakes or battery charge, then grounding through the converter should be fine.

Also, I would recommend an auto-reset circuit breaker instead of a fuse. Normally, if you blow a fuse you only lose one light function, but in your case you would lose everything, which could be no-bueno.

burbman · Answer

Agree on grounding the 7-way directly. Remember that the light converter, even though powered, only deals with the lights. I suspect that the light converter only needs power for its internal circuitry, since power to the lights will come into the converter box from the vehicle lights it is connected to.

The brakes are going to be fed by a separate power line coming from the battery (or switched power source) directly to the brake controller. If you are including a 12v+ charge line, that will be a separate feed from the battery, so 3 battery connections in all for this 7 pin connector.

If you are not towing anything that has brakes, then stick with the flat 4 connector.

jerem0621 · Answer

Thanks guys,  I am wiring in a brake controller.  Going to be pulling a small TT or hybrid with the TC. Just got to source some 10 ga wire and I'll be good to go.

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Vehicle Side Wiring Question

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