Electric operated hydraulic brakes

[B.G. Smith]

Anyone used a Prodigy on the elec/hydraulic brakes? I have a 5th wheel with elec. operated hydraulic brakes, I bought a Prodigy controller to use with the new trailer, while reading the installation instructions for the controller I came across the warning, "not for use with elec/hydraulic brakes". I E-mailed Prodigy trying to determine what problems might be expected if one should use one on the above mentioned brakes. Their reply: "Thank you for choosing Tekonsha. The Prodigy is not recommended

for electro-hydraulic brakes. All of our controls are designed for

electric brakes only. Have a good day. " I have a Voyager in the truck and it seems to work pretty good. Any ideas?? bg

 

[MCherry]

I have been wanting to find out about electric/hydraulic brakes.



i am thinking about converting a trailer that has vacuum/hydraulic brakes to the electric/hydraulic, but want to hear from someone that has used them before I put that much money into it.



I'm interested in your comments.



Martin

 

[B.G. Smith]

Brakes

Don't have much experience yet. Made a trip to Dallas area, then on to Oklahoma and back through Bossier City area. Compared to electric only, they are great, lots of stopping power. They seem to work pretty good with the controller I have, momentary lag between application and braking but I had that with elec. brakes. The instructions that came with the trailer say if you are stopped like in traffic not to keep your foot on the brake pedal for more than 3 minutes as it could burn up the motor that actuates the brakes. So far, so good, I would order them again, just would like to find the best controller for the brakes. bg

 

[MCherry]

Do you know what company made your elec/hydraulic system?



What kind of trailer is it on?



I've read some on the internet about ElecDraulic, and about a unit made by Carlisle. Also, there's a fairly new product sold by Dexter, the axle manufacturer. Haven't talked to anyone that has any experience with any of them, and I'm interested in any info I can find.



About controllers -- I don't remember which, but one of them cautioned against using some Tekonsha controllers, probably the one you have. The others say you will have the most success using their brand of controller, but that may be "marketing. "



Take a look at these websites:

=www.masterbrake.com

=www.dexteraxle.com

=www.carlislebrake.com

 

[RustyJC]

I had some discussion with MOR/ryde regarding their electric over hydraulic disc brake conversion on our 5th wheel. They said that our existing Jordan controller would work fine with their system.



And that's all I have to say about that.



Rusty

 

[B.G. Smith]

The electric/hydraulic unit is a Dexter Predator EH 1600 with disc brakes and is mounted on a 2004 American Star 31' 5th wheel trailer. Their instructions say that the unit will work with many controllers but they recommend the Dexter. bg

 

[cwienenga]

electric hydraullic brakes

I have a triple axle boat trailer and ordered it withdisc brakes and plumbed to tongue. I then installed hydrastar unit for electric control (carlisle). they recommended "activator II" for controller. works fine. both controller and hydrastar have adjuster for aggressiveness. set hydrastar at max and controller where you want it. note that the unit is a pump and when you touch brake pedal it starts activating brakes (you can here the pump start loading down as fluid is pumped to brakes). when manuevering, if you have your foot on the pedal the brakes will set up so you have to set controller to zero. I now also have a 5th wheel and am looking into using a jordan and need to check with both carlisle and jordan for their opinion since both brake systems are different.

cliff

 

[stacerbob]

We had sold and installed a few Prodigys and one of the guys at work put one in his own truck. when he traded trailers (48' 3 axle race car) and put electric over hydraulic on it. The guys at Redneck trailer supply said the prodigy or the jordan was the only controller they recommended. Then about 6 months later they started adding the little warning tag in them. He has had no trouble and the brakes work great.