wamcneil

Oh my goodness... my head is spinning. hard to process all of that... I don't know anything about the trimark systems, but for anyone with an essex keypad its really very simple. Just jumper the Lock wire to the System Ground wire inside your passenger armrest and it'll actuate the locks just exactly like if you press 555. Or... you could jumper the Remote Lock wire to ground. That one does the same thing and is actually made for an external switch. The beauty of a low-side switch is that you can put as many switches as you want in the circuit downstream of the load and they all work the same. Here's how the essex keypad works: When you press 555 it makes in internal connection between the Lock wire and the System Ground wire. When you press your 4-digit code, it makes an internal connection between the Unlock wire and the System Ground wire. And then when you then press the 7/8 button it makes an internal connection between the Auxiliary Output wire and the System Ground wire.

Do you have the Essex keypad by the door? It would be very simple to add a momentary contact switch inside the door to trigger the lock relays

Did you try pressing one of the other aux output keys? Nevermind... you said that you tried that. Sorry. The system works by grounding a wire on the keypad. This is basically a low-side switch on the relay coil which, which triggers the relay. If you get behind the keypad and jumper the 7/8 aux output wire to ground, it should actuate the Unlock relays for the bay doors. That'll tell you if you have a problem with the keypad or with the coach wiring If the keypad is the problem, you could try swapping the bay door unlock signal from the 7/8 aux wire to one of the other unused aux wires. You should have 12v coming from the coach wiring to that 7/8 wire on the keypad. That's voltage going through the relay's coil, and the keypad shunts that to ground when you press the 7/8 button. If you don't have 12v on that wire, there's something wrong with the coach wiring or with the relay(s)

Yeah, I just checked my build sheet. All of the key codes are on the last page. BAG. COMP. DOORS Trimark TMxxx I was able to order new keys from trimark based on that TMxxx code. It's in the "Model Number" column, but it turned out to be the code needed to order keys. Mine are keyed the same as the trimark latch on the entry door. All of mine were super-crusty and wouldn't budge. After I finally got a working key, they needed lubrication before the key would open them.

Here’s my write up on the keyless systems and replacement of the wireless module https://www.irv2.com/forums/f115/essex-1603-keypad-and-wireless-replacement-330319.html My rig didn’t come with a bay door key either… I can’t remember who made the bay door locks, maybe trimark? I think I found a key code in the build sheet and was able to order replacement keys from the manufacturer.

Hey Bob, if nobody needs the pair, how about you take one and I’ll take the other?

Yes. They’re on Amazon. Two versions; the open type to use with an inflator and closed to go straight on the end of the air hose.

Have y'all seen this? LockNFlate Locking Air Chuck - Six Steel Jaws Lock onto Any tire Valve - Won't Leak or pop Off - Rated to 150 PSI It's an air chuck from the LockNLube folks that have a similar locking grease coupler. I'd tried locking air chucks several times in the past and have always been disappointed and went back to a regular press-on chuck. This thing is pretty expensive for a tire chuck, but I must say that I'm loving this locknflate ! Instead of two thin blades of sheetmetal to grab the threads and hold the valve stem inside the chuck, it's got 6 threaded fingers, kind of like an internally threaded collet. These fingers each engage several threads on the valve stem and pull it securely up against the seal. For regular car tires I wouldn't care that much. But It's a real pain to hold a chuck on those bus tires... I splurged and put the locknflate on a new Milton digital inflator. Cheers, Walter

What happens if you flip the main circuit breaker on the generator and run it with the breaker off? At one time I had a problem with my generator shutting down and in the course of that I learned that if the generator shuts down without error, it’ll show you the last error that was flagged in the past. Onan’s trouble shooting guide led me to try and run the generator with the circuit breaker OFF, indicating that my problem was external to the generator. In my case, the inverter was shutting down the generator. Do you have a separate AGS or inverter with auto gen start feature?

Sorry I never updated on this! I should have measured better... It is exactly the same bottle, but too tall. So, don't order the 6-qt like I recommended... 5-qt should be an exact replacement. 5 Quart Natural Multi Purpose Tank with Mounting Tabs - 8.62" L x 4.17" W x 12.9" Hgt. (2.25" Neck) | U.S. Plastic Corp. (usplastic.com) The tank is cheap... but shipping is horrendous.

TE Connectivity / AMP Mate-n-Lock connectors

I think you’re probably right. It’s probably just cheaper and easier to design their own controllers rather than design around a trailer brake controller.

A description of the problem would help… I had a sketchy Allison transmission output speed speed sensor that would periodically drop to zero and immediately spring back up. Initially it would do that only towards the end of a long trip when everything got hot. That messed with the cruise control and made it feel like the engine was surging. The problem got worse over time. If that output speed sensor goes totally dead, the trans will throw an error and it won’t shift out of 1st

Hmmm. Ok… Maybe the original post sounds like I’m proposing that a trailer brake controller could directly actuate a car’s hydraulic braking system??? I’m wondering why trailer brake controllers aren’t used to control an aftermarket toad brake system, which in turn actuates the toad’s hydraulic brakes.

Installing a solar system is a lot of work either way. If I were doing it again I would go 24v (and if a smokin’ deal comes along on a 24v inverter I still might). In my case, going 24v would be easier than rearchitecting the system to properly deal with 200 amps @ 12v. Aside from the inverter, all of the other 12v loads are pretty small and could be handled with a 24-12v converter and maybe one small 12v battery. (assuming you’ve already replaced all the halogen ceiling heaters with LED lights). That being said… Regardless of the system voltage… If you’re not already strongly motivated to go solar you’re probably right not messing with it and trying to adapt a system that wasn’t designed for your purpose. Cheers Walter

Interesting... Looks like the inventor of unified brake licensed his patent to another company that later dropped the product. Then he started SmartBrake with an improved version of the unified tow brake around 2013. And SmartBrake used a standard trailer brake controller. Inventor Upgrades Unified Tow Brake System - RVBusiness - Breaking RV Industry News Smart Brake - Adding Extra Stopping Power (motortrend.com) But then looks like he disappeared again sometime about 2019 and smartbrakellc.com is gone. I guess the market doesn't share my view that a trailer brake controller would be an elegant solution to toad braking.

I've been doing some research on trailer brake controllers and they're apparently not as standard as I thought. Some are proportional and brake according to the tow vehicle's braking (like the Ford integrated controller in my expedition), but others are 'timed' and just send a fixed gain to the trailer brakes shortly after the vehicle brakes are applied. Maybe that variability is why the toad brake systems don't want to use a trailer brake controller? And maybe it's hard to set the gain correctly from way up front in a motorhome where you can't see or hear the toad's brakes locking up. Maybe the motorhome use-case would make the system less idiot resistant than towing a trailer with a pickup?

That’s a little different. “System connects to RV and engages car brakes when the RV brake lights illuminate.” Apparently the invisibrake is a constant pressure type , rather than modulating brake pressure proportional to RV braking force. Im talking about using a trailer brake controller like is used to supply proportional braking signal to a trailer’s electric brakes.

So I was driving my new (to me) expedition the other day, with a factory trailer brake controller and it got me to thinking about toad brake systems. I was using the expedition to pull my grand cherokee toad at the time... Electric trailer brake systems are a very mature, standardized and reliable technology, right? There must be literally millions of trailer brake controllers on the road in pickups and RVs. But I'd never come across a toad brake system that utilizes an electric trailer brake controller. Seems like toad brake manufacturers have invented a bunch of different ways to control the braking (some better than others...), but why not the electric trailer brake controller??? I did some searching and only found one toad brake system that uses a trailer brake controller on the RV, the Brake Buddy Stealth (edit: just read that this one ONLY works with the included brake controller, NOT a standard trailer brake controller). I'm not promoting the brake buddy stealth, BTW, their implementation is horrendously complex IMO, but that's a subject for another debate. I'm just talking about the use of a trailer brake controller on the RV end to control a toad brake. Why is this not a fairly common thing? Seems to me like it would be pretty simple and reliable to use a trailer brake signal to control some kind of proportional electric actuator on the toad. Personally, I've got an air pressure-based system, which I think makes a lot of sense on an RV with air brakes, but it's no use when I'm pulling the toad with a pickup. If I had a similar system that used an electric actuator and trailer brake controller rather than air pressure, it would be much safer to have toad brakes when I'm pulling it with something less massive than the diesel pusher. I suppose that's an argument for the portable/inertial systems, but I want a system that does NOT have a mind of its own and is driven in direct response to how hard my foot is pressing on a brake pedal. Thoughts? Walter

Something like that Pyle is exactly what I was looking for 5 years ago!

I replaced our dvd/surround system several years ago. Seems like there’s not a lot of selection these days in compact home theater systems. Look for ‘home theater in a box’ systems. The problem is finding something compact enough to fit in the overhead cabinet. Most of the systems are full size components. Samsung was about the only reasonable option last time I was shopping. I really wanted one withOUT a dvd/Blu-ray player, but couldn’t find a compact surround sound amp that didn’t also have a dvd player. Cheers Walter

Yeah, I remember having to do some head scratching to figure out the jumper. It was for the parking light flashing Heres what the manual says: H1/10 WHITE (+/-) Parking Light Flash Output This wire provides a high current + or - output to flash the parking lights (+ is factory default setting). This is suitable for driving (-) light control wires in Toyota, Lexus, BMW, some Mitsubishi, some Mazda, etc. If the vehicle has a negative parking light circuit, the light flash jumper on the control module must be moved. There’s a little electrical jumper spanning two pins on the circuit board somewhere. I’m not looking at mine, and I don’t remember where it was. It’s probably 3 pins on the circuit board with a little plastic jumper spanning two of the pins. Move it over one pin so it connects the other pins. The “dome” light is the set of overhead lights in the front. They’re connected to a switch and also to a relay. There’s no black/white in the old wireless pigtail, but if you look at the plug on the coach side of the pigtail, you should find a black/white wire in the plug with no corresponding wire on the wireless side. Splice into that wire and it’ll make the front overhead lights come on for 1-min when you unlock the door.

Ha! Sorry. I think my instructions would be more useful if the titles were not reversed. Looks like it should be New Avital on the left and Original Box on the right. Q- "Does black, black/white, violet, violet/black mean to tie all those together and connect to the black, and grey?" Yes Q- "You have the black/white listed twice... once going to the black/white and also to the black and gray". You should have two Black/Whites on the avital (positions 3&4 on the plug). Position 3 in the plug goes to ground and position 4 goes to the old Black/White, but which one goes where probably doesn't matter. As I recall, this feature wasn't used in the original configuration. The wireless box works by supplying a "signal" to an output wire. Take the input/output pair of wires 3&4 for example. Wire 3 is the signal "input" for the domelight and wire 4 is the signal "output" for the domelight. Our application uses negative signals, so the signal input wire is connected to ground. If some or all of the input wires were connected to 12v+, they would provide 'positive signals'. When the box calls for the domelight to come on, it provides a 'negative signal' to the domelight relay by connecting the domelight output (#4) to ground (#3). This completes the circuit of a relay coil and causes a relay to close. That's why all those wires are connected together and go to black and gray in the harness. As I recall, the black and gray wires are crimped together in the same pin in the harness, so I crimped them both together with all the wires in the avital pigtail. But you could just clip off the gray wire and use just the black wire. Wire position 11 is ground for the wireless unit, and all of the other wires connected with it are ground 'inputs' for the various functions.

That was my thought too, but it won’t matter where you buy the wireless unit because the A1/Essex wireless instructions actually aren’t very useful for our application. The useful instructions are in that irv2 thread that I linked. There’s really nothing special about the Avital wireless unit. It’s truly an unrelated 3rd party automotive accessory. But I feel like A1 selling it along with the Essex keypad is an indication that maybe it’s better quality than the average generic wireless kit. Mine has held up well and the keyfobs don’t feel cheap.

Yeah. The black box looks to be the wireless receiver. The door keypad is entirely separate though. The wireless box and the keypad are both connected to the coach's lock solenoids, but they are not otherwise integrated with each other. Essex advertises their keypad with a 'wireless option' which makes it sound like the wireless is somehow integrated with the keypad, but it's not. When you purchase the 'wireless option' from A1 electric (essex distributor) you get the essex keypad and a 100% separate 3rd party wireless system. When I bought a replacement essex keypad from A1 in 2017, it came with an Avital 2101L wireless system, and it seems to be of good quality. I don't use the keyfobs often, but they are still working fine after 6+ years. Not sure if that is still a current avital part number, but I'm sure it will be easy enough to find an equivalent on amazon.