argve
Resident Fruitcake
This is a spur off of another post - I started a new post as to not hijack the other thread in the IDI portion of the board.
Ok I have owned three types of brake controllers.
First is the ramp/time delay.
A ramp/time delay controller is an entry level controller that most all RV shops and automotive parts house carry. How this type of controller works is you will have two adjustments on them, first adjustment is time delay. What the time delay does is when the brakes are applied (or more importantly when the brake lights are activated) the contoller will start to apply the brakes on the controller. Now the controller will ramp up the brake force on the trailer from no brakes to full brakes over the specified amount of time selected by the time delay knob or lever located on the controller. The second adjustment knob or lever determins how much braking force is applied. Now let's say that you have the time delay set for 2 seconds and the braking force set to just short of lock up for the trailer (let's say for example that is 10amps) so what happens is the instant you press on the brake pedal the controller starts to supply current to the trailer brakes but it starts out at 0 amps then moves up to 10 amps over the course of 2 seconds. Now what you find after a while is if you have the controller set for in town driving that when you come off the highway you will feel like the trailer is shoving you because quite frankly it is thsi is because when you are slowing down from 65 mph or so the braking force required to stop is much more than stopping from 40 mph. This does not seem like a big problem because you can just reach down and adjust the two levers but lets say you do that and now you're adjusted again for in town speeds... but wait... now you're out on a two lane highway and someone pulls out in front of you - do you have the time to start jacking with a couple of knobs/levers on the controller? - I think not...
So the next type of controller is a inertia type controller. How this controller works is you have one control on it - level control. How this level control works is it tells the controller what is level - you need this control because the dashes in trucks are not anywhere near level and the controller needs to be able to sense when the truck dips during braking so that it can make a determination on braking force that needs to be applied. How this control works is it senses when the brake lights are on just like the last controller. When the brake lights turn on the controller then looks at how fast you are slowing down. It does this through two different way - first it looks at the angle at which the truck is at and also gains input from a decellameter (sp?) basically it looks at how quickly truck trailer combo is slowing down to either increase or decrease the braking force. So this means if your going down hill and press on the brake pedal then the controller will look to see that the truck is not level and not slowing down much so it applies a pretty good amount of braking force to the trailer. Same thing going up hill - you hit the brakes, controller looks to see that truck is again not level but it's going the other way, then looks at how quickly your slowing down and applies a little bit of braking force. Sounds pretty good huh... but wait... the problem with these controller is they remember how much braking force was used last time to come up with total braking force needed for the next stop - now you have come off the highway and are now in town - you hit brakes truck slows pretty decent. Then you get in town and hit brakes well it remembed that you needed about 8 amps to stop last time so it makes that the upper limit - which is not a problem because 8 amps is more than enough to stop a rig only going 40 mph... Now you're on the same country highway and same dumb driver pulls out in front of you but wait last time you only called for 3.5 amps to stop (remember you didn't use the full braking power because it was not needed due to the calculations done from the angle/rate of decel) so you only get to use 3.5 amps until about half way through the car when it finally decides that might need a little more braking - a little to late for my tastes...
So insert the final brake controller that I have personally towed with... the Jordan. This one starts to break from the herd in how it senses how much braking force you are calling for. The Jordan controll uses a cable that is latched to your brake pedal and has one control on it (max breaking force). How this system works is it doesn't care if your brake lights turn on or not because it uses a cable tied to a potentiometer which is set up to directly vary the current to the trailer brakes. What you do is you adjust the gain controll so that the trailer brakes will just short of lock up (10amps in our case today) - you can see the total amp draw going to the trailer via the display mounted on the front of the controller. Then as you drive if you call for slight braking by only pressing down one quarter of the way on your pedal then the controller only supplies one quarter of the amps to the trailer (2.5A) - now you call for half braking power this time (5 amps is applied) so here you are pulling off the highway and press down half way to slow down - controller sends out 5 amps. Now you're bopping along at 40 mph and call for 20% braking power - controller sends out 2 amps. Same dumby pulls out in front and you smash the brake pedal down - you need all the brakes you can get.... Controller responds with a full 10 amps applied to the trailer....
One beniefit to the Jordan is say your brakes fail on your truck for whatever reason - line blows... the jordan will allow you the same braking controll over your trailer as if you had brakes on truck... now for the inertia type controller - not so because it will be looking for the front end of the truck to dive a little and to start slowing down to make it's determination on how much braking force you need because it doesn't know that you have just suddenly jammed the brake pedal into the carpet... The Jordan knows you did because it's tied to your brake pedal not reading factors going on...
The ramp/time delay treat every stop the same...
Now with all three controllers you get a panic button or slider on the front of the unit so you can if you want/need to you can run the trailer brakes without having to touch the brakes on the truck... so when ****** dorf pulls out in front and you blow a brake line do you really have time to reach down and press or slide a button.... Trust me I have had someone pull out in front of me while at full highway speed in bumper to bumper traffic - you don't have the time to go fiddling with a lever all you have time for is jamming pedal to the floor and trying to dodge him...
Now there is another type of controller out on the market it's the Brake Smart controller and how it works is it senses the pressure in the brake system via a pressure sender that you install in a brake line... Ok here ya go... dude pulls out in front and you jam on the brakes - line blows.. no brake pressure felt then you must not be calling for brakes huh.... Lovely huh...
Now for the first three types of controller I actually called and spoke with tech support about them when making my choice of controllers - I actually spoke with Mr. Jordan himself for quite sometime. I have a degree in Electronics so Mr. Jordan and myself had quite a talk and when I hung up from him I had one of his controllers on order. Basically in our conversation he informed me that he too had every controller at the time on his truck at one point in time and hated them all - so while he was complaining his lovely wife sat in the side seat listening until one day she turned and said either shut up and build a better mouse trap or shut up and live with what you got.... There in that moment in time a business was born...
Ok I have owned three types of brake controllers.
First is the ramp/time delay.
A ramp/time delay controller is an entry level controller that most all RV shops and automotive parts house carry. How this type of controller works is you will have two adjustments on them, first adjustment is time delay. What the time delay does is when the brakes are applied (or more importantly when the brake lights are activated) the contoller will start to apply the brakes on the controller. Now the controller will ramp up the brake force on the trailer from no brakes to full brakes over the specified amount of time selected by the time delay knob or lever located on the controller. The second adjustment knob or lever determins how much braking force is applied. Now let's say that you have the time delay set for 2 seconds and the braking force set to just short of lock up for the trailer (let's say for example that is 10amps) so what happens is the instant you press on the brake pedal the controller starts to supply current to the trailer brakes but it starts out at 0 amps then moves up to 10 amps over the course of 2 seconds. Now what you find after a while is if you have the controller set for in town driving that when you come off the highway you will feel like the trailer is shoving you because quite frankly it is thsi is because when you are slowing down from 65 mph or so the braking force required to stop is much more than stopping from 40 mph. This does not seem like a big problem because you can just reach down and adjust the two levers but lets say you do that and now you're adjusted again for in town speeds... but wait... now you're out on a two lane highway and someone pulls out in front of you - do you have the time to start jacking with a couple of knobs/levers on the controller? - I think not...
So the next type of controller is a inertia type controller. How this controller works is you have one control on it - level control. How this level control works is it tells the controller what is level - you need this control because the dashes in trucks are not anywhere near level and the controller needs to be able to sense when the truck dips during braking so that it can make a determination on braking force that needs to be applied. How this control works is it senses when the brake lights are on just like the last controller. When the brake lights turn on the controller then looks at how fast you are slowing down. It does this through two different way - first it looks at the angle at which the truck is at and also gains input from a decellameter (sp?) basically it looks at how quickly truck trailer combo is slowing down to either increase or decrease the braking force. So this means if your going down hill and press on the brake pedal then the controller will look to see that the truck is not level and not slowing down much so it applies a pretty good amount of braking force to the trailer. Same thing going up hill - you hit the brakes, controller looks to see that truck is again not level but it's going the other way, then looks at how quickly your slowing down and applies a little bit of braking force. Sounds pretty good huh... but wait... the problem with these controller is they remember how much braking force was used last time to come up with total braking force needed for the next stop - now you have come off the highway and are now in town - you hit brakes truck slows pretty decent. Then you get in town and hit brakes well it remembed that you needed about 8 amps to stop last time so it makes that the upper limit - which is not a problem because 8 amps is more than enough to stop a rig only going 40 mph... Now you're on the same country highway and same dumb driver pulls out in front of you but wait last time you only called for 3.5 amps to stop (remember you didn't use the full braking power because it was not needed due to the calculations done from the angle/rate of decel) so you only get to use 3.5 amps until about half way through the car when it finally decides that might need a little more braking - a little to late for my tastes...
So insert the final brake controller that I have personally towed with... the Jordan. This one starts to break from the herd in how it senses how much braking force you are calling for. The Jordan controll uses a cable that is latched to your brake pedal and has one control on it (max breaking force). How this system works is it doesn't care if your brake lights turn on or not because it uses a cable tied to a potentiometer which is set up to directly vary the current to the trailer brakes. What you do is you adjust the gain controll so that the trailer brakes will just short of lock up (10amps in our case today) - you can see the total amp draw going to the trailer via the display mounted on the front of the controller. Then as you drive if you call for slight braking by only pressing down one quarter of the way on your pedal then the controller only supplies one quarter of the amps to the trailer (2.5A) - now you call for half braking power this time (5 amps is applied) so here you are pulling off the highway and press down half way to slow down - controller sends out 5 amps. Now you're bopping along at 40 mph and call for 20% braking power - controller sends out 2 amps. Same dumby pulls out in front and you smash the brake pedal down - you need all the brakes you can get.... Controller responds with a full 10 amps applied to the trailer....
One beniefit to the Jordan is say your brakes fail on your truck for whatever reason - line blows... the jordan will allow you the same braking controll over your trailer as if you had brakes on truck... now for the inertia type controller - not so because it will be looking for the front end of the truck to dive a little and to start slowing down to make it's determination on how much braking force you need because it doesn't know that you have just suddenly jammed the brake pedal into the carpet... The Jordan knows you did because it's tied to your brake pedal not reading factors going on...
The ramp/time delay treat every stop the same...
Now with all three controllers you get a panic button or slider on the front of the unit so you can if you want/need to you can run the trailer brakes without having to touch the brakes on the truck... so when ****** dorf pulls out in front and you blow a brake line do you really have time to reach down and press or slide a button.... Trust me I have had someone pull out in front of me while at full highway speed in bumper to bumper traffic - you don't have the time to go fiddling with a lever all you have time for is jamming pedal to the floor and trying to dodge him...
Now there is another type of controller out on the market it's the Brake Smart controller and how it works is it senses the pressure in the brake system via a pressure sender that you install in a brake line... Ok here ya go... dude pulls out in front and you jam on the brakes - line blows.. no brake pressure felt then you must not be calling for brakes huh.... Lovely huh...
Now for the first three types of controller I actually called and spoke with tech support about them when making my choice of controllers - I actually spoke with Mr. Jordan himself for quite sometime. I have a degree in Electronics so Mr. Jordan and myself had quite a talk and when I hung up from him I had one of his controllers on order. Basically in our conversation he informed me that he too had every controller at the time on his truck at one point in time and hated them all - so while he was complaining his lovely wife sat in the side seat listening until one day she turned and said either shut up and build a better mouse trap or shut up and live with what you got.... There in that moment in time a business was born...
