Thread: Tekonsha P3 "short To Battery" warning

Thanks Graeme and Nomad, I'll check out your suggestions.

Cheers
Mike

to fix most of the modern light issues use a 13 pin plug-these are wired so that you can tow a 7 pin box trailer putting the brakes out of the way on pin 12and a decent battery+/- pin...i saw a round 13 pin convetors recently with 12-24 combined systems.

most of the new cars that can tow 2 ton will have to change over to these to operater the electric trailer brake battery rear fog lights and the very rare trailers that have reverse lights or camera.

is the short something stupid like---black is suposed to be power and white is earth.or you have conected to wiring at the stop lights.
to us 40+ old australian mechanic this has tacken some time to get used to and why do they have to complicate simple stuff.[red is stop light positive trigger-and blue is brakes on basic units trailer units]

It was bad enough when brown could be +battery+aux,-earth or parking lights..

I normally been running the stop trigger to the trailer plug .that way you run 2 twin cores wires on to battery supply/earth the other to trailer plug.this also helps when you working with 24V stuff.Ive always had problems withwork trucks only operation one stop light of the electric or air trailer brakes.

the stop lights must apply when you use the manual control.most cars today cant cope with the stop/tail light bulb fail system issues-if its conected to the trailer plug stop light contact at least the trailer stop lights work.

my trailer was made 1993.
this year at work someone dug out a NSW rego inspection notice.
we do our own rego with random audits-and what this was for to inform about the change to present trailers with assighned tow vehicles the same as motor homes and towed cars.

after 2007 all trailers over 2 ton gross must have electric brakes with a brakeaway system that charges of the towed vehicle and has a warning system to indicate the charge condition.they requied the battery to last 15 minutes.mine had a N70 that would last over night.

the electric brake earth return must not use the chasis earth system---it actually states that earth must not pass throuh mechanical components.
that migh be you could use twin core from from the brake drum/hydrolic control to the chasis-then-chasis to trailer battery and trailer plug battery earth return.

I would sudjest that the white earth wire in 7 pin plug not be used as it for light systems.my trailer had another loose wire that i misstook for the battery charge aux wire being red and it caught fire in the circuit braker.

Problem now solved, wire had to be snipped. Looks like the dealership didn't do the install properly.

Gentlemen my sincerest thanks for all your help with this.

Cheers
Mike

Hi Mike,

Happy New Year to you.

Can you reiterate - which colour wire had to be snipped, and I assume you meant that this wire is that off the wiring loom on the vehicle, not the caravan?

Gday Tempest,

My apologies for the late reply but have just got back from holidays.

I dont remember which wire he cut but it was in the wiring loom in the left tail light assembly as per the posts here talking about trailer led lights.

The brake controller was seeing power when the car headlights were turned on. Sorry I know its a vague answer but it had something to do with the european cars having a dual tail light circuit or something like that. I didnt understand fully what the problem was but there were a couple of faults with the installation by the dealer.

Cheers
Mike