Bluetooth trailer brakes

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Originally Posted by V8Ian

I'd imagine the headlights on is to avoid the false triggers that concerned me. Imagine hitting a patch of fog and turning on the rear fog lights of a D2, the show would promptly grind to a halt.
How does the breakaway work?

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Hi V8lan

As I mentioned we were provided no instructions, the device does display on its power up cycle that the instructions are on the back of the unit (which I had installed in my phone holder). There was nothing useful there when I looked.

However there is a high tensile cable that you connect to the vehicle around the safety chain anchor point or the shackle and the other end plugs into the trailer mounted unit. If this becomes disconnected the brakes come on. There is also a large “emergency brake” soft button on the in vehicle controller.

I'd be thinking the "turn Headlights on" message would be that the unit uses the light's power to power the unit and charge it's internal battery.

That makes sense as not all cars have the the aux power connected to their trailer wiring and the lights would be only continuous power available for the unit on the trailer.

And as far as "seeing" the brake lights? This would be done by sensing the voltage at the trailer socket of the brake lights and not an optical sensor that detects the light emitted by the brake lights themselves.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FisherX

I'd be thinking the "turn Headlights on" message would be that the unit uses the light's power to power the unit and charge it's internal battery.

That makes sense as not all cars have the the aux power connected to their trailer wiring and the lights would be only continuous power available for the unit on the trailer.

And as far as "seeing" the brake lights? This would be done by sensing the voltage at the trailer socket of the brake lights and not an optical sensor that detects the light emitted by the brake lights themselves.

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Thanks FisherX

Yes I think the first person I spoke with @ Kennards was a little confused about exactly how the thing worked and was trying to put the ‘technology’ in as simple terms as he could.

Anyway as I said above we got home alive and so did our load!