On the blue wire out of the contoller I have power as the pedal is pushed and the probe light gets brighter as the controller climbs from 1.0 to 10 on the gain. Very slow climb but it does eventially get there. I read somewhere that at the rear plug (at the trailer connection) I should have between 1 and 3 volts on the earliest controller. I will recheck everything with a meter.

I am going to check the wiring in between and get back to you guys

thanks again

 

Matt,

I am working today, but will get back with you tonight, if you are still stuck. Remember, one of the things your initial problem was possibly telling you was the controller was not getting a solid feed from the battery so you had to kept dialing up the setting on the builit-in TBC.

I find controllers are very seldom the case in this type of situaion, although it can be. It is essential to do troubleshooting with a multi-meter as even if you have voltage, with a frayed connection, it can all go away when you load the lead.

You can troubleshoot almost everything with a booster box and a few jumpers, but a meter really makes things fast. For example, power your controller, operate it manually and see if your seven pin on the truck is active. If not and you have a hot blue lead out of the controller, you have a wiring problem between the controller and your seven pin. You should have virtually no voltage drop from the controller to the seven pin. If you do, again a sign of a frayed connection.

Hope this helps rather than confuses,

Steve

 

Matt,

Taking a voltage reading at the seven pin is of limited value. In fact, when the factories train techs, they tell us it is a waste of time and even set up a bench test demonstrating why.

Voltage can go away under a load so I do all my tests with amps rather than volts. I have a plug in tester that does that, but if your meter can handle at least 20 amps put it in series between the controller blue lead out and the blue lead to your seven pin, and manually go to max on your controller. You should see 3 amps per magnet or in the area of 12 amps total on your meter. Less than 10, there is a problem.

Steve

 

Thanks Steve, I will give that a shot. I just put everything back together and I am starting over and checking one by one as you said.

I will report back

Matt

 

an alternate way to do that is to buy a few 10A fuses (or 5A fuses if you only have one axle... or 15A fuses if you have 3 axles...) and put them inline with the brakes...

This will tell you if you are running sufficient amperage, as the fuse will blow. If the fuse does not blow, you aren't exceeding the rating.

 

Heres some numbers, less the amperage suggestion I havent got to yet.

Truck with no trailer, vehicle running

Factory TBL - at the plug to harness
Green - 12 volt with pedal activation
White - good ground
Red - 12 volt with key on
Blue - Gain at 1.0, zero volts by pedal or slide bar, Gain at 10.0, 3 volts by pedal or slide bar

at 7 pin same numbers on blue, and ground is good


Aftermarket (Activator II) at harness plug
Green - 12 volt with pedal activation
White - good ground
Red - 12 volt with key on
Blue - 9.5 volts continuous 11 volts with slide controller activated nothing from pedal

 

My '05 had the same problem. After checking everything, and testing with an emulator, replacing the 7 pin socket solved the problem.

The original had some moisture inside, and 7 individual holes for the wires to enter through. The new one has one larger center hole for all the wires. Much easier to seal up after connections are made. ( The bolt pattern was a bit different though).

Dave

 

Matt,

The Activator II is a timed controller so the long you hold down the brake pedal, the more power increases to the seven pin. With a quick push, you may not see much, but holding it down, the power should build. You will see variation here depending on where output contol on controller is set. With the manual activation held, you should be able to dial the output up and down with the output control on the brake controller. The output control is on the top of the controller.

Green is the trigger feed for the controller, it should feed red on the controller. The red hot with the key on should feed the black on the controller. I am curious to see what kind of amps you will get with your trailer connected.

Are you seeing the correct indications on your controller screen. You should not being seeing any error codes and just a single dot as there is no trailer connected. How about with the trailer connected?

Steve

 

Steve,

I am taking my 550 to get the trailer I left on the job, if I can get it out today with the heavy over night rains we have had, didnt want to take it home the other day. To do the amp test I would rather use the trailer I had the problem with rather that one of my other trailers.

I want to do the amp test with the factory TBC first for a starting point. I am going to grab a new meter today that will handle 20As. Just so I am clear I will be hooking it inline on the blue, trailer connected. The trailer (Towmaster) is 2 axles with 4 magnets drawing about 3 amps each. I should be looking for 12 amps but no less than 10 amps overall.

The questuion I have is this truck was built in late 04, I have read that the first generation TBCs in that time frame do not work under 10-15 mph.

SO when I build my inline meter set up I best make sure I can test this while driving. I realize I should be able to test it with the slide bar at a stop. Should I crank up the gain to 10 for the test?

As far as the aftermarket not giving anything by the pedal, I did hold the pedal for about 10 seconds and got nothing, I will recheck the wire connections.

I will report back

Thanks

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

I am going to run some reading on my built-in later today. I have two trucks and have one of each type in my trucks.

Using the manual slide, you should be able to engage the trailer brakes at any time as itis an emergency override. I know of no reason it should be speed related. You should be able to run all your checks static. If it works without moving, the problem will be in the controller.

The meter is in series with the blue lead so power passes throught the meter to the brakes. Dailed all the way up on the controller or fully activated you should see brakes at max. With my built-in, all I do is fully activate it to see it go all the way to 10. I normally use it that way when I hook dealer's trailers to make sure everything is working before it leaves the lot. If you have good numbers, you have good trailer brakes.

The overwhelming choice for troubleshooting is high end aftermarket controllers. Mine reads volts and amps to the trailer on its screen just by going into the built in diagnostics in the aftermarket controller.

I would try your truck with more than one trailer as I have a hunch the problem here is going to be something very basic. Wiht aftermarket controllers 90% of what I see is due to problems with wiring and connections.

Steve

 

Forgot,

Any time there is a possibility the problem is with the trailer, with the trailer hitched and the seven pin disconnected from the truck, put the break away pin and try to move the trailer. Brakes should be locked and trailer should be stuck fast. Do not pull the break away pin with the seven pin connected to the truck.

Steve