Electric Brake Controllers

I have had a solid state Hayman Reece controller for a couple of years now and am Quite happy with it was a lot cheaper than some of the others too.

The Tekonsha Prodigy appears to be the best on the market with proportional braking and with a variable boost control. With the latter you can get the brakes of your camper to operate ahead of your vehicle brakes. With proportional braking, the harder you apply the brakes the greater current is applied to the camper's brakes. With other brands, the electrical current to the van/trailer is increased the longer the brakes are applied. In other words if you are braking gently coming in to stop at traffic lights, the van brakes can lock up.

Therefore stick to the Tekonsha Prodigy.

Regards
SC

Prodigy. I have one and it's excellent. If you get anything else new you are ripping yourself off. That's all the brake and clutch mob here fit, if a customer asks for something else they try and talk them out of it because nothing else stacks up. Easy to fit. Hardest bit is laying the wiring out.

Barnesy

With set current brake controllers the trailer will only lock up if you set the controller to give that much current. Any type of controller that has a pendulum or G force sense type of control (Like some Tekonsha's) can play havoc when operating off road where you are operating on steep inclines as they can apply braking when you do not want them to.The solid state controllers also operate when reversing or trying to carefully roll back without the towed trailer dragging you down the hill on a slippery patch.
Most Solid state controllers are easy to adjust for load, and grip on the terrain you are driving on While driving (provided it's mounted within reach of course)

What type of controller best suits your needs depends on the type of terrain you intend to drive on, Eg. While crawling down steep terrain in low range I turn braking force up a little and toggle the manual over ride lever on the controller as it is needed to stop the trailer pushing the towing vehicle out of control downhill.
Solid state types usually have no problems handling heavy corrugations and rough tracks.
The adjustment on solid state controllers usually consists of a dial to adjust the amount of braking force applied to the trailer, and a dial that controls how quickly the braking force is applied to the trailer after this is set , it is activated by pressing the brake pedal down enough to activate the brake light switch, you don't have to apply the brakes on the towing vehicle to activate. This I have found is very handy in pulling the trailer back in behind the tow vehicle if it is wandering on corrugations or loose dirt on fire trails etc.

While they don't do everything! they do ONLY what I want them to do and work well on the terrain that I frequent (which is also a lot of blacktop).

What is the best depends on where and what it is to be used for .

Hi Brian - We have had the Tekonsha Voyager with both our Coromal Magnum (similar to yours) and now our offroad poptop. Different tow vehicles - both fitted with the voyager. They have been a simple and reliable unit. I understand the Prodigy is more automatic, and worth the extra, but the Voyager has worked well for us, and we do 90% of our camping off road ..................Keith

As mentioned both the Prodigy and the Voyager are good units.

Both are a simple 4 wire hook up.

The Prodigy also works in reverse which I have found to be useful on steep gravel roads.

I sell 10 Prodigy units to every Voyager unit so they are more popular.



Regards

Derek.

Prodigy !!! Prodigy !!! Nothing else compares !!! Most popular, most reliable !!!

Never seen anything that dominates the market so much as this thing !!!

we run prodigy on all our vehicles and never had a problem

Hi Brian (good name). I would go Prodigy. I have a Voyager and found that I
have got to adjust the controller when I leave the black top and hit the gravel
the brakes seem to lock up when going slower.Maybe I have not got it set right
to start with. Cheers Brian

Listen to Derek Brian, After all ..... he only sells the tekonsha brand and there is no-one else here trying to promote their store that sells brake controllers on this site at the moment. Oh damn...............I should be giving the tekonsha prodigy a good rapp because it is one of the dearest, silly me.
After all Derek is an expert brake controller tester,a dual battery expert,a solar power setup expert, a ohh.... I could be here for a while

Personally can't tell the difference between the Hayman Reece and the voyager in performance. And feel the prodigy is a compromise as a set and forget for people who don't really know how to adjust brake controllers.

How many faulty Tekonsha controllers have failed compared to other brands, do a search in the archives Brian before going with the Hype.

I wouldn't say the Prodigy is a set and forget controller !!!!

It is fully adjustable and I usually do just that !!! Nearly full on on the tar and backed off a bit in the rain or off road !!

Wouldn't call it dear either !! $165 is pretty reasonable, and if your paying more, then you need to look around a bit harder !!

The Prodigy is more advanced than the opposition, but even better, they are very reliable..

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all of your replies. You have given me some things to follow up on.