Thread: AL-KO stability control fit

Originally Posted by Billy Bignutz

It is a pain with the new van I have just ordered with a video cable, 12 ping connector, grey Anderson and red Anderson. Hence a bit of extra cabling of the D4 needed on top of the already wired Anderson and brake controller (Tekonsha which is compatible with alko). I will wire the Alko power in a separate run of 6mm2 cable to battery via a self resetting breaker. I will probably end up with alko unplugged permanently as I have heard that the TSA and Alko fight each other. Alternatively I may have TSA function disabled in the D4 config file (have to look into this further). At present there is a parameter called trailer stability assist or words to that effect and mine says undefined at present. so I may try disabled setting.

Firstly, I think it would be very unwise to either permanently disconnect the ALKO-ESC or the D4 TSA. I have heard people use the phrase as well that the systems would "fight each other", but if you think logically, that is probably a dumb statement. For 99% or more of normal driving neither the ESC or TSA would be operating especially in terms of trying to manage a Yaw or sliding event. The purpose of TSA is for the D4 to try and apply braking to the car to assist with a Yaw event of a trailer or caravan. ESC will operate only on the caravan brakes in the event of a yaw event that exceeds a certain G-force and repeats more than a set number of times.

Some folk on the caravan forum have reported feeling the vans ESC actuate in an extreme manoeuvre briefly. My brother in his jeep when towing the van was forced off the road by an overtaking vehicle and his ESC activated to keep the van straight and avoid a disaster. If his vehicle had TSA as does the D4 it's possible that the TSA may not have even actuated as the ESC minimised the sway quickly. Nipped it in the bud you could say. If it was me, I'd want everything working in my favour and would have both systems operating rather than de activating one of them. The TSA will only respond to help correct what the van is doing. ESC will make the van yaw less so the TSA will operate less.

As far as the Anderson plug, use the Traxide Star connector, it's what I did, works great as my van also came with the grey Anderson for battery and red for ALKO ESC.

As far as the 12 pin plug and caravan camera cable, I too had to get those. I already had the 12N plug modified to the australian standard with the brake controller on pin 5. I got a local auto electrician guy to connect in parallel my 12N socket (and a couple of pins from the 12s for the brake safe battery) to a separate 12 pin flat socket. He did the job in about an hour. As far as the camera cable I ran mine at the same time as I put the Traxide system in so ran it alongside, but it's a much smaller cable so you can easily get it up through the right rear tail light assembly and run it through the jack area and along the drivers side sill. That should only take an hour or so.

Problem with a D4 combo is tail starts wagging and vehicle steps up to control it.
Van system also detects it and steps up to the plate..
The 2 systems now clash against one another setting the oscillations (yaw) into a different behaviour and 2 systems can potentially fight each other for control...

Better to have a properly designed and loaded van and a decent controller.

If for whatever reason the tail starts wagging the dog, accelerate gently and activate the vans brakes via the controller...