anyone ever wire up an electric brake from the vehicle to the trailer?

I just wired a 7-pin rv connector under the bumper of my 09 grand cherokee jeep-

my p'up has electric brakes-
one of the 7 pins is for the electric brake-

can I just carry a wire up from the switch on the brake pedal to the pin?

The brake lights & blinkers are the same bulb- so I can't tap off the bulb circuit or the brakes will activate everytime I use the blinkers.

If I tap in front of the switch, will that circuit be energized when the blinlers are on? in which case, I'd have to tap on the back of the switch...

 

hmm- a thought... the other side of the switch will have constand 12v- so that wouldn't work very well, but the 3rd brake light isn't on the blinker circuit, and only comes on when I hit the brake... so maybe if I tap of that 3rd brake light I should be fine

 

I thought you had to have a brake controller for electric brakes

 

I dunno

it's just one wire going to the electric brakes on the trailer-

Maybe a controller keeps them from locking up when all you want to do is slow down?

if that's the case- forget it. I'll use the tranny to slow down if I have to decend a steep hill or something.

 

That's how mine was. The electric brakes have a lot of stopping power so you need to have the controller as a means to adjust the power based upon how the trailer is loaded and also how hard you're stepping on the brake pedal.

Without the controller I'm thinking you'd be at full lockup every time you touched the brake pedal...

But I'm no expert on electric brakes... I just know how my car trailer system worked many years ago. HTH

 

As far as I know, you would need a controller for the brakes...if you wire them in through your lights it would lock up the trailer brakes as soon as you hit the brakes. You can buy a controller for less than 100 bucks though. In my truck it was already prewired for the controller so I don't really know how tough it is to wire that up! I am sure someone can give you more info than I can!! Good Luck!

 

Yeah mudslinger 2 is right you need a controller. You are right that would work but you would have no control on how hard the trailer brake are to brake. If you hard wired them when you hit the brakes it would instantly send 12 volts to the trailer and you would have maximum braking on the trailer. The controller will control how much voltage is going back to the trailer depending how hard you brake. Hope it made sense.