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Full transcript: www.etrailer.c...
Hi, everyone, Aidan here with etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at the Curt Discovery NEXT Brake Controller. This is gonna be a time-delayed brake controller. Let's check it out. When it comes to brake controllers, there's gonna be two options you're probably looking at, time-delayed and proportional. Proportional is gonna be the nicer of the two where if you lightly press your brakes, the brakes in your trailer are also going to be lightly applied.
If you slam on the brakes, the brakes in your trailer are also going to match that proportionally. With a time-delayed brake controller, it's gonna be applied at the same rate every time, so you don't get that fine adjustment. You can still adjust the settings, but it's gonna be the same every time. So if we're rolling up to a stop sign, coming to a very slow and predictable stop, and our gain and sensitivity are set kinda high, it's gonna be applying the brakes pretty hard. Same for if we have those set kind of low and we slam on our brakes on the highway, because someone in front of us stopped, the brakes aren't gonna be applied in a similar fashion.
There is the manual override you can always pinch to apply, but that's just something to know with a time-delayed system like this. Let's talk about those controls. The manual override is a pinch style where I'm pressing the button with my thumb. It's pretty easy to reach from the driver's seat where I've got it all set up. So whenever I'm driving, I feel like if I needed to suddenly reach down and get it, I can find that pretty easily every time, and index my thumb well enough to get a good press.
So good to know for emergency situations where you might need that. Now, there's gonna be two sets of controls here for the gain and the load. The orange buttons are going to adjust our gain or our brake power. You can go anywhere from 0.5 up to 9.9, and this is going to signify the different power levels. So 0.5 is the weakest, and as I go up, it's going to get more and more powerful.
So if I have a heavier trailer that needs more stopping power, I'd set it higher. The next one is going to be our load. This is basically how quickly the brakes are applied, so that can go from 1 to 9. At 1, it's going to be the lowest, and at 9, it's going to be the fastest or the quickest application. So basically, ramping from zero to fully applied where we have that gain set. So for demonstration, I'm just going to put the gain all the way up to max, and I'm gonna hit the brakes. And you'll see, slowly, it'll climb up to where we set it. And if I turn that load down all the way to 1, it's going to climb much slower to that designated power level. So you can fine tune this to your own trailer application, and depending on how heavy of a trailer you have and how good the brakes are, that will determine what you want those set at. But generally, that gain is going to be for the weight of the the trailer, and you can kinda determine the load from there. Now, to give a visual indicator of that gain, we've got our vehicle hooked up to a trailer simulator box. I've got the gain set to the absolute lowest it goes, so that's gonna be the lowest brake power, and you can see where the voltage is reading right now. If I turn the gain up to 5, that's gonna be right in the middle, you'll see that voltage will climb up higher. And then if I turn it up to the max, 9.9, you'll see that climb up even higher. So this is just to give you some visual indication of that different power level of the braking. This is designed to work with trailers up to four axles and will work with PWM, ABS, cruise controller, and electric-over-hydraulic brakes. So keep that in mind as you're picking this out if it's gonna work with your trailer. Up to four axles, I'd say for the most part, you're gonna be totally fine. If you don't need one that can go up to four axles and you like this style, Curt does make a similar version that's up to three axles. So that's something to keep in mind too if you don't need this much. Now, the big advantage to something like this, and something you probably noticed if you're familiar with brake controllers already, is going to be the size. It's a lot smaller and a lot more shallow than the brake controller we pulled out of this 4Runner today. And that's great, because even though it's mounted externally, it's not going to be in the way of your knees as you're getting in and out of the vehicle. And as I'm in a normal driving position, I've got plenty of distance between it and my leg. I don't feel like I'm gonna be hitting it all the tim
25 авг 2024
