Trailer brake wiring thoughts

[Z06tacoma]

I have bought a Runaway Slice camper, with a loaded weight of 575#. Thinking about putting electric brakes on it to help with stopping power. I also plan to put an Autowbrake controller on the trailer itself.

I have a Kuryakyn 4-wire plus 1 harness for the triglide. I was planning on using the plus-1 to power the brake controller via a SAE 2-wire plug. Thats leaves lights powered by 4-way and 2-way for brakes. Of course the trailer lights also have to be connected to controller.

I have concerns that the voltage may not be enough straight off the bike. I talked with another rider who was going to wire his and he was going to use his bike power to activate a relay on trailer. Relay would allow power to flow from a secondary battery on trailer. Of course some sort of charging system would have to be added to keep secondary battery up, like a solar panel.

Thoughts from any wiser ones? Less wiser commenters also welcome.

[FuzzyWuzHe]

My trailer wiring harness on my 14 uses relays to power the trailer lights, but the power comes straight off the trikes battery. Now I don't have a brake controller or electric brakes, but, my voltage stays just under 14 Volts.

I have no idea how much voltage/amperage a brake controller uses with electric brakes. but, pretty sure you shouldn't charge a secondary battery on the trailer with the bikes charging system unless the alternator is upgraded (and that might provide enough for the controller and brakes). Using a secondary battery with a solar charger is possible, but, what about really overcasts days? Just spitballing here.

[DK Custom Products]

Congratulations on your trailer, should be a lot of fun!



I've towed trailers behind Harley's for around 100K miles, and never felt like I needed more braking than the bike provided.

About 50K miles behind Tri Glides.

Most of the time I was running between 400-500 lbs between the trailer and cargo.

I only mention the above as info to put into the pot of deciding if you really want to use electric trailer brakes.

That said, if you do want to proceed, it is a simple mathematical equation...

Factors:

What your Stator puts out (different years have different outputs)

What the draw on the electric brakes you're looking at is

Do you run with all your lights on

Do you run with the audio on, and if so, how loud (amp draw)

Do you have any aftermarket lights or accessories (fans, etc.) what amp draw are they

Add up all your draw during normal riding, look at your output to the battery.

Look at your battery amp hours, even if you are on the line of output/input while the brakes are on, your battery stores extra amp hours that can then be replenished when the brakes are not applied.

There are a couple of things that guys with big sound systems do to accommodate periodically using more amps than the max input to the battery-

1. Get a larger amp hour battery that will store amp hours for the times they are blasting their audio

2. Get a second battery for storing extra amp hours (which they generally place in the Tour Pak or saddle bag)

It is very unlikely that your current charging system could not store up the amp hours needed for the electric brakes.

Here are a few photos from over the years-









Kevin

[Jack Klarich]

What year Trike do you have?

Have you considered switching all your lights to led/ this will cut your amp draw Kevin has given you a good starting point for adding up your total draw. You don't want to push your charging system to much Bad Ju Ju IE burned up stator, dead shorting the battery

[Z06tacoma]

What year Trike do you have?

Have you considered switching all your lights to led/ this will cut your amp draw Kevin has given you a good starting point for adding up your total draw. You don't want to push your charging system to much Bad Ju Ju IE burned up stator, dead shorting the battery

Its a 2018 triglide. The only extra draw on battery right now is some love jugs.