I thought I would post this as I think it is something I think everyone should think about and it was an easy upgrade.

Well I had a fun time a month or so ago trying to find a short in my trailer brakes at night 50 miles from home.
The dash said that I had a problem in the trailer brakes and sure enough when I put them on there was nothing happening. Still 100 miles from our destination and to far from home I pulled off the fwy and ended up in a residential area near a tall fence on the side of somebody's house.

Crawling under a trailer on pavement and working with a flashlight is no way to diagnose this type of problem but had no choice. All those connections are all wired together in one big clump with only crimp connections and only way I could think of was to cut wires one at a time and see when the problem went away.

After cutting the rear axle magnets first of course that didn't fix it. So then I cut the right front axle wire and the notice when away. Well I was able to hook up the back axle and then we were on our way with three out of the four brakes.

Well it does make the trailer pull a bit to one side but it sure is better than having no brakes.

When when we got home I found the short was somewhere in the wire that they run through the axle to the right side. I got some real good wire


and used the original wire to pull it through.

I rewired the whole system and put them all on their own 5A circuit using a nice fuse box that I got just for it.



Now if one has a short it will just blow the one fuse and the others will still work. I am glad I wasn't on a steep hill when it happened the first time.

 

my understanding.. each wheel magnet get less then 5 amps...

so you might try using 5 amp fuses..

last year I cut out ALL connectors on my trailer brake wiring system...
soldered everything.
.

 

Yea, I measured them and each one is about 3.6 amps. I do have 5 amp fuses in them, that is just the picture from Amazon.

 

Nice job there DD. I like the fuse box with separate circuits to each brake. So far the only issue I've had has been a bad ground to a rusty ground lug. But if I have to rewire one of my trailers, I'll be doing the same thing you did.