Brake Controller Reese vs. Prodigy vs. ???

[Diamondpilot]

that's what them thear fancy PANIC switches are for. being able to apply the brakes by hand, manually.



soundguy

Yea, that works but much nicer to not have to think about it when you have 25,000# trying to pull you into the drink.

Chris

 

[aczlan]

that's what them thear fancy PANIC switches are for. being able to apply the brakes by hand, manually.

Unless you have a hand on the steering wheel, a hand on the shifter, a foot on the brake and a foot on the gas.

Aaron Z

 

[Soundguy]

then I'd suggest have one of them basic controllers that see's the brake light switch and works, vs the inertial one..

 

[jejeosborne]

I don't know.... 'Can' you?

I could.

the circuit trigger and timer and pwm would be high school level circuits.

simple led driver circuit for some basic analog monitoring would be easy as well. IE.. a basic timed controll would be quite doable for a guy with soldering iron + breadboard + discreet component experience. Fancier LED segment display and real time messaging and variable from the higher end units would become increasingly difficult to implement onthe hobby level with out a DSP controller I'd think.

soundguy

You didn't answer my question. You cut off the end of my question with your quote. I will ask it here is again.

Are there any laws pertaining to how well a brake controller works. Can I fashion one up from some radio shack parts AND BE LEGAL?

I have only seen laws that just says you have to have a brake controller under xyz circumstance. Surely manufacturers have to follow some type of regulations but haven't seen any mention of it.

I agree these timer based models would be an easy high school project.
Jeff

 

[jejeosborne]

Yea, that works but much nicer to not have to think about it when you have 25,000# trying to pull you into the drink.

Chris

I have never seen a brake controller not capable of activating the brakes manually. I thought you were interested in automatically. Hopefully you were being sarastic.

I haven't backed that heavy of a boat down but the prodigy did fine with my smaller one.
Jeff

 

[Soundguy]

You didn't answer my question. You cut off the end of my question with your quote. I will ask it here is again.

I'm not a DOT lawbook.. can't answer that question, so didn't address it.

a cursory search of the online codified rules didn't turn up any sort of spec for controllers, just rules sayingthe trailer had to have x brake axles if over x weight.. etc.. etc.. age / exemptions.. etc.. etc.

IMHO.. if you had a trailer with a homade controller that worked, and it made the brakes come on.. and for some reason you were inspected.. I'm guessing the inspector wouldn't take yer lil project box apart to scrutinize it. IE.. it either works or don't work.

now.. that's the compliance part. the other reality is the liability part.

say you are tooling down the road.. 7k trailer in tow, got yer 20$ radioshack stop box velcro'd to the dash with some nify leds showing thru so you know you have power and whatnot... hitting brake pedal makes everything work.. hitting panic button makes yer brake lights come on.. yada, yada.. everything cool.. so you are being carefull, doing 5mph UNDER the speed limit, have enough dot grade chain and binders on your load to make any 12 dot cops smile ear to ear.. new tires, all air pressure is correct.. good sunny day.. high visibility, you had a good noghts sleep, and are fully awake. your tow vehicle is beefy and over-ated for the task at hand. all in all 100% perfect towing setup and conditions.. other than the homade 20$ brake controller, you have tripple or quadruple redundancies on everything.. now.. you are on a nice classic old 2 lane road with beautiful woods on either ide and a nice caopy of trees overhead, and beautifully manicured hedges frame each side of the road.. high class community, etc.... now.. the 6yr old girl that lives on that street has tied a rope to a branch in a tree and is playing swing... she's a 6yr old kid so is not paying attention, she's having fun and is hiding at the top of one of the hedges 100% out of site.. and leaps out and swings right out in middle of the road, and her rope comes loose and she lands 6" in front of your truck tire... it happens so fast.. like 500 milliseconds.. and you literally almost can't even process the data your eye has encoded, let alone have your brain tell a muscle to move, to stomp a brake pedal... the signal from your brain to your leg is racing down the nerves about the same time the truck tire runs the kid over fully and mashes her flat. Oh yeah.. her mom can't have any more kids.. so she's the 'special girl', and her rich dad's the one that lives in the mansion at the end of the road, next to the private clubhouse. also.. he's the senior partner in his own law firm that has 2000 lawyers that practice in ever state and 6 other countries. His daily driver car is a 'beater' lotus just so he doesn't 'dirty' any of his 'expensive' cars.

So yeah.. he sues your pants off.... the inks dry on the lawsuit before your vehicle rolls to a stop..

since he's a billionair.. his team of 2000 lawyers hires every pro mechanic, traffic specialist and expert witness that money can buy in order to 'investigate' the accident.

after plenty of red hot poker style investigation.. they find that ho-made brake controller.

AH-HAH .. he couldn't stop his vehicle because he didn't have a 'proper' brake controller..

even though you would have needed a time dialation machine in order to react fast enough to have actually stopped before hitting hte kid that flew out inches in front of the truck, and the fact that no technology known to man would have prevented the truck from hitting her at the time of the accident.. well.. that won't be heard in court. all the jury will hear is that you had a homade controller, and your truck didn't stop before it ran over 'princess'.

pretty much assured to get a landmark jury award. the kind that would make a money-vacume sucking sound that you could hear in a distant galaxy for decades to come... even though sound can't propogate thru a vacume.. etc. your car insurance, which you actually upped to the max, and had a 2m umbrella policy.. just because, well.. that maxes out and so does your homeowners, and that doesn't even cover the coffee the investigators drank during the first day of investigating you. the rest of the award money, which.. likely exceeds all the currency in circulation on the planet has to come out of your backside. in fact. it's so much money, they'd have to clone you 6 billion times, and colonize the moon with your clones, then harvest all their organs, and sell them, just to make the first interest payment... and then......

see where this is going

oh yeah.. the 50$ walmart one wouldn't have stopepd ya either.. but it would probably have some sort of lable on back.. maybee 'ul' or some other test agency... you'd still get sued and loose and be sold into slavery and all.. but..

soundguy

 

[jejeosborne]

oh yeah.. the 50$ walmart one wouldn't have stopepd ya either.. but it would probably have some sort of lable on back.. maybee 'ul' or some other test agency... you'd still get sued and loose and be sold into slavery and all.. but..

soundguy

Now I almost conceded just because that was such an awesome story that kept my interest all the way to the end. Better than the movie I watched tonight.

But..............No such luck!

Same story line except the little girl fell 60' (not 6") infront of my vehicle a few years prior when I had a timer based controller. I, with my quick reflexes, hit the "panic" button as quickly as humanly possible and bring the rig to a stop as fast as I could. Unfortuneately I came to rest right on top of the little girl. The tow company had to lift the front truck axle from her lifeless body. For the next week I just keep replaying the whole accident in my now dispirited brain. My will to live has been taken, my wife and kids leave me, my wife marries my best friend, the rest of my few remaing hairs fall out, and I develop an irreversible case of ED. I keep telling myself "Jeff you cheap *****, you could have prevented this whole thing if you would have just bought a Prodigy style or better controller. All I needed was to be able to stop just 3 feet quicker and I would still be loving life as it were.

I am sued, cloned, and the world is now overrun with cloned Jeffs on the world wide web causing havoc to everyone.

But wait........I quickly sit up in my bed, wiping the sweat from my forehead I take a couple of deep breaths and gather my senses. Oh my God I yell! All is well! It was just a dream! The world will not be overrun with cloned Jeffs!

Jeff

 

[tlbuser]

that's an apples to acorns comparison.

truck capacity for instance isn't just a 'good enough / safety issue. it's a LEGAL issue, and has defined, set limits.

brake controll quality is a multi level issue. not a cut and dry line to cross.

soundguy

No, it's not. You choose to justify it that way to enable your argument. And just because something is mass marketed and easily available doesn't automatically qualify/disqualify it's existence. Sometimes it just means the topic never got much media notice befor the insurance co. settled.
And having driven umpteen million miles on " good enough" doesn't necessarily substantiate a claim either. Really just implies that fate/karma/God had a hand in the game. Remember the old saying, " god protects drunks and fools".

 

[Brad_Blazer]

I think I was one of the first posters in this thread to suggest that a timer based controller is not ideal in a panic stop situation. That said, there are many factors that affect the stopping distance of a vehicle and it is simply not practical to always drive in a configuration that minimizes stopping distance (no passengers, low on gas, no cargo, and certainly no trailer). You drive conservatively based on the limitations of your vehicle and keep your rig properly equipped within the law and your means.

 

[Diamondpilot]

I have never seen a brake controller not capable of activating the brakes manually. I thought you were interested in automatically. Hopefully you were being sarastic.

I haven't backed that heavy of a boat down but the prodigy did fine with my smaller one.
Jeff

No, all I have seen have a manual activation but many of the inertia styles will not allow braking in reverse. This is where the timed and pressure based system. Yes, you can always us the manual feature but I dont want to think about it.

Chris