Thread: Tekonsha P3 "short To Battery" warning

Its not wired correctly. The wire going to the brakes is connected to power somewhere, possibly to the brake light circuit.

My appologies I should have given you guys more info after reading what I posted.

When he P3 is not connected to the caravan the unit works as advertised, ie no warnings etc, it's only when I connect it to the caravan that I see the message.

From this I'm thinking to the unit is wired up correctly to the car and the problem in somewhere in the caravan 7 pin plug????? we have had a bit of rain here in the last few days so maybe water in the plug?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Cheers
Mike

Water in a plug wont provide enough current to make the P3 think the brake wire is connected to power.

With the van not connected, turn on the parker lights and see if the P3 has anythig to say - perhaps the short to battery msg. The D4 wiring needs to have a wire cut in the trailer plug loom when fitting an electric brake controller because it uses pin 5 of the plug as the trailer/van's right tail light whereas in Oz pin 5 is used as the elctric brake wire.

Hi Mike,
Is this the same trailer/van that your other post about the indicator light not picking up on the dash refers to? Could be related if same trailer/van.
My theory would be that the link between pin 5 (electric brakes) and the tail lights is still in place.( landrover has two feeds to tail lights as standard). The one on pin 5 is not used for australia but needs to removed so pin 5 can be used for the brakes.(see other post on here about cutting the wire)
With trailer unplugged do you get error on P3 controller if lights are on? If so would indicate the link in still there?.
If you swap the indicator bulbs left to right, right to left, does the other fault stay the same of follow the bulb.
When hooked up is the fault on P3 straight away or do you need lights on?

Regards
Gerry

i type too slow!

G'day guys,

The unit was installed by a LR dealership but was outsourced to their electricians so Im assuming the job was done right. the van was done by jayco when I had another car with the same P3 and it worked fine. I removed the P3 and had it installed in the D4 and this is my first time connecting the van to the D4.

Graeme the P3 behaves normally with the park lights on, ie the logo/help screens all display.

Gerry this is another van and not the one in my other post. You guys have mentioned that pin 5 needs to be removed, Ill have a look at this tomorrow morning.

The fault message only appears when I plug the van in, I can see the P3 thinking for a sec and the normal screen that you see with a successful connection pops up for a fraction of a second and then I get the fault message.

What needs to be done with pin 5? Do I simply remove it or do I need to wire the brakes thru it?

Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated.

Cheers
Mike

Pin 5 needs to be the van brake wire. I suspect the van's plug wiring was changed to match your earlier vehicle and is not currently using pin 5 as the brake wire.

HI Graeme,

Ive pulled the plug apart and it looks like from the trailer end pin 5 is the brake, ie blue wire.

You guys have mentioned that pin 5 wire has to be cut, is this at the car end? Im assuming thats somewhere in the wiring loom under the dash.
Cheers
Mike