Thread: Electric Brake Controller - Tekonsha Prodigy or P3

Got my P3 about 6months ago direct from the states. $120 delivered to my door via ebay USA. AUS dollar gone down the tubes since thou.

The P3 works great and is very well build. The display is brillant too. Has alarms and lots of diagnostics. And all front access as you say.
Luv it.

Wouldn't touch the P3. Bought one 7 months back and it was a POS from the start. To make things worse the eBay seller I bought it from also stopped replying to my e-mails once it was obvious it was faulty.

I ended up getting a Redarc EB1AX-RH. This is a much better unit to install for starters as it can be hidden away and the controls put where ever you want, that's because the RH stands for remote head. I'm very happy with it and the Tekonsha has been bined as an expensive joke.

Do a search on the forum for EBC's and you'll find some pictures etc.

I have a Redarc EB1AX, only very small in footprint and works fine.
cheers
blaze

Gday Steve, we used to have a Voyager and have replaced it with the new P3 and it is the ducks gut in comparison, the vans breaks come on and release very smoothly no jolts and rough pulling anymore

Originally Posted by Taz

Got my P3 about 6months ago direct from the states. $120 delivered to my door via ebay USA. AUS dollar gone down the tubes since thou.

The P3 works great and is very well build. The display is brillant too. Has alarms and lots of diagnostics. And all front access as you say.
Luv it.

I like the Prodgy and it has saved me at least once with an out of balance load produced the worst ever fishtail entering the M5East tunnel. (There are reasons beyond my control for the load positioning.)

Don't like your chances with the exchange rates to the US, 6 months ago I purchased some tyres from the US, $285 each. Three weeks ago the same tyres from the same vendor were $545 each and it is mostly the exchange rate.

Well, I ended up buying a P3 off ebay (local Melbourne seller) for $199 delivered.
I've positioned it to the right of the instrument cluster next to the A pillar - easy to see and to run the wires up to. I just stuck the mounting bracket on with a piece of double sided tape so that I can remove it when we're not towing (one less visible piece of equipment for someone to pinch).

When I first connected it everything was fine, but going on a quick test drive I got a "no trailer connected" the third time the brakes were applied.
Initially I suspected it was a wiring issue, but finally tracked it down to dead brake magnets. They were very old and worn, and I figure that the near-locking test in the P3 setup procedure just pushed them over the edge.
Two new magnets and it was all working perfectly.

In case it helps anyone's troubleshooting in the future, the dead magnets were basically open circuit, but a new ALKO oval magnet measured 3.5 Ohms.

We have just come back from a weekend away with our Jayco camper. Mostly highway travel, but about 60k of unsealed roads with a bit of slow/steep stuff - mainly due to a navigation error.
The P3 performed perfectly. It was easy to set up and use, and the brake application very smooth.
So smooth in fact, that for a start I kept an eye on the brake voltage display just to confirm that the brakes were actually being applied (which they were).
Thankfully no 100k emergency braking, but we did get a couple of borderline orange lights that we pulled up easily for.
Definitely a big improvement on the ancient Voyager unit fitted to my old Falcon which either felt like it wasn't going to stop or that it was going to tear the towbar out of the back of the car when you braked.

Overall I'm very happy with it.

SteveG

great to hear Steve, yeah the first trip we did i kept watching aswell, when braking i love how it nearly feals like theres no van on and the car brakes like when by its self

We've got prodigy's in both the disco and the defender. We recently towed a float with two horses 2400km and found the prodigy to be extremely effective and very smooth. We towed on both bitumen and dirt roads and the ability to simply press a button to change boost modes helped a lot.

Would highly recommend them