Uh Oh! This ain't good!

[hfd376]

Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

Ok, I got the prodigy mounted, ran a 14 ga wire from the front to back to control the brakes, hot and ground go directly to the battery, brake sense tapped into the cold (stoplight) side of switch. This is on a '00 Dodge ram without the factory tow harness.

First thing, the prodigy has two dots on the display. Funny, the instructions don't say anything about that. Oh well, must be a firmware revision.

I did not have the trailer with me as I was running the control wire at the firehouse. Much easier with a creeper and concrete floor. Get in the truck to back out of the bay and all is well. Both lights go out after about 10 minutes, and come on when stepping on the brakes, like normal.

On the way home, I notice both the ABS and Brake warning lights are on, and the cruise control does not work. When I get home, I cut the brake sense wire, and that does not clear the warning lights. I disconnect the battery (a good time to clean the posts) and that clears the warning lights.

What gives? I did not think out my questions so tech support was not much help. They did not seem to know of glitches with the Dodges. I'll call them again tomorrow.

Anyone have any ideas?

Doug

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

I have three thoughts on this.
One, is Did you accidentally short the wiring while tapping into it or hooking them up?

Two, did you hook it back up once you cleared the fault lights to see if it does it again?

Three, Did you check to ensure that the brake lights were off when not pressing the pedal (Just in case there might be backfeed from the load the of the controller)?

 

[hfd376]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

Hello, David, no, I don't think anything was shorted. I did hook it back up and there was no problem indicated. I didn't have the trailer with me last night, but tonight, after all went well, brake lights on the trailer worked normal.

I did see that I have to rethink my grounding. lights looked good, no dimming, until I stopped, and they seemed to "flash".
Not everytime, seemed to concur when the hitch shifted on the ball. Must be picking up and losing a ground at the ball. I am picking up ground from a screw thru the rear bumper, and all of the wiring is 14 gauge. I have some stranded 8 gauge wire around here that I am going to run from the battery to the 7 pole connector tomorrow.

Another thing, and I only saw this two times, a whitelight from the rear of the truck when manipulating the manual function on the controller. I got the impression that it may be coming from the license plate lights, I didn't think to try to reproduce it in reverse, and I could not get it to do it again. I think its the evil trailer light gods welcoming me to their world!

I saw something on another site that I had not thought of or seen discussed here. That being the extra load of the running lights on the trailer and the headlight switch not being able to handle the extra current. Perhaps I should look into making a relay setup to switch the running lights on.

Doug

 

[Bird]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

Doug, I'd never heard anything about a headlight switch having a problem with the extra current for trailer lights, but do know it used to be common with most vehicles to have to replace the original flasher for the turn signals with a heavy duty flasher if you were going to pull a trailer.

And most vehicles used a double filament bulb for the taillight/brake lights; i.e., the same filament was used for both brake lights and turn signals. A lot of trailers continued to have that arrangement after a lot of towing vehicles went to separate bulbs for the brake lights and turn signals, so an additional (diode?) had to be used to make everything work right.

But I don't see how that would have anything to do with the problem you have with the brake controller, and since my experience is dated, don't know that this helps at all.

 

[WVBill]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

I remember when I put a trailer hookup on my '00 RAM a few years back that there was a warning about running the trailer lights directly from the vehicle lights. I recall it had something to do with the system not being able to handle the extra load - although I'm sure it wasn't the headlight switch.

I also installed a brake controller at the same time and so I pulled a new wire from the fuze block to supply power to the brake controller and the trailer brakes. The hookup to the vehicle lights only "senses", it doesn't pull any real current.

You seem to be depending on the hitch ball to provide the ground return for your trailer lights. As I recall on my hookup, there's a negative wire as part of the trailer plug that provides the ground return between the trailer and the vehicle chassis.

Hope this helps.

 

[DieselD]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

All the wires you need were already in the Dodge. Look up to the left of the brake pedal theres a small white 4 wire plug. this can go to your controler, in the back again on the left side frame rail is the other end. Dodge sells the adapter for the box & the plug for the back(large 7 wire w/middle ground) for under $30.
Im always too late, Danny

 

[hfd376]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

Thanks, Bird, and congrats. It seems to make sense. I pulled a 6x9 trailer with no problems and the new 16 footer only has 2 more marker lights, so its probably not much of a problem.

WVBill, I'm assuming you have had no problems with your set up? When I installed the harness for the 6x9 trailer last year, I just drilled a hole in the bumper and ran a self tapping screw in for the 14 gauge ground wire. Now, I should know this, but sometimes ground isn't always ground. Some grounds are better than others. I'm guessing that the ball connection is sometimes better than the screw connection, and thats causing the flashing. A 10 gauge wire from battery to the plug will solve that.

DieselD, you're better late than never. Someone, somewhere will do a search here, and the info about the wiring being in place ( without the adapters ) will come in handy. I kinda thought that may be the case, since it no longer makes sense to keep 2 types of wiring harnesses when you build new trucks. I just was not able to confirm this when I started out.

As far as the "white light", I think that may have been the result of a good/bad/good ground connection. I'll have some time tomorrow to fool with it and report back. Maybe it will help the next person that decides to wire his or her own truck to tow their pride and joy instead of paying thru the nose.

Doug

 

[AMP762]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

On the way home, I notice both the ABS and Brake warning lights are on, and the cruise control does not work. When I get home, I cut the brake sense wire, and that does not clear the warning lights. I disconnect the battery (a good time to clean the posts) and that clears the warning lights.

You're realy pretty lucky,a few years ago I worked at a Chevrolet dealer,had a guy come in a little P.O'ed. seems he could turn the ign.switch,put the key in his pocket,walk into the shop and his NEW truck was still running. he had a friend install his brake control and the next week the problem started. broke out my trusty pliers cut the wires,problem solved.sent him back to his friend.never have figured out how he could have done that /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[timb]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

Don't overlook an errant electrical path created by a "slight" short somewhere - broken insulation or wire ends touching. Strange things happen.

I had a 7-pin socket go bad (corrosion) on my Jeep. Hadn't pulled a trailer for awhile so I hadn't noticed the gunk building up. Anyway - the inside of the (capped) socket looked like a battery terminal. Had some real interesting electrical side effects - the running lights would come on dim when I touched the brakes /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif (the headlights might have too, I don't remember now) - and the ABS light would trip occasionally.

Fixing the socket fixed the problem.

 

[WVBill]

Re: Uh Oh! This ain\'t good!

Doug: No, I've had no problems with my set up - except that without a trailer hooked up, the indicator lights on my brake controller box have a faint glow. Has not affected any of the truck's sytems, though.


For the ground wire, I drilled and used a self-tapping screw into the frame near where I installed my reciever. I don't know if the bumper is grounded to the frame or not - I'd think it would be, though.

DieselD: I remember looking up under the dash for a plug to tap into when I installed my system - thinking that they would have just one wiring harness whether you got the tow package or not - and I didn't find one. I guess I just missed it.