Tekonsha Prodigy Brake Controller Review
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Manufacturer InstructionsReview of the Tekonsha Prodigy Brake Controller
Today we are going to show you part number 90185 from Tekonsha. This is their Prodigy controller right here. This is actually Tekonshas most popular brake controller, the Prodigy. And this is what you get in the box. Obviously you get the brake controller itself. Then you get the pocket that holds the brake controller especially if you have to transport it between 2 different vehicles. You also get the permanent mounting bracket which is actually nice and takes up less room. You also get the hardware to install the brake controller to the dash and to the bracket. A few butt connectors are in there to use for any wire connections. Speaking of wiring, it comes with a universal wiring harness that will plug into the back of the brake controller then you run your lines to the various circuits in the vehicle. Also to help you out it comes with a little informational DVD.
What we will show you next is the actual pocket that you can install on the vehicle, it actually mounts up like this. The brake control simply just slides inside. Spread the little clips out a little bit and it goes into the screw holes and that pretty much holds everything in place. On the backside here is where the harness plugs into. It is pretty simple. Slip it underneath the holder and you just push it together and it snaps in place. So in other words, if your are going to go ahead and share this brake controller between two different vehicles, you just simply take it our of the pocket, pull it out of the pocket, and take the harness back off of this little clip that is kind of hard to see. Pull that clip back and it pops off. And then this stays in your truck and the brake controller stays out of the way when you are not using it. Next we will show you the unit in operation.
That means, obviously, it is not hooked up to a trailer. And what this does is actually send out a trace current all the time looking for a connection. It does not take much current, it is real slight and it will never drain down the battery. Once you do have a trailer hooked up, it will show a C for connection. That tells you you have a solid connection between your trailer brakes and everything should be working fine. And with talking about the power settings and the gain, that is controlled by this knob right here. And what you can do is put it over to the middle here and you can spool it towards the front of the vehicle, that will be basically full on, and then rotate it back towards the rear of your vehicle, towards the driver seat. And then, you can spool it down all the way to basically nothing. Basically, you want to set to probably somewhere in the middle, like around six. And then you take your trailer, hook it up, go on a back road somewhere or a big packing lot and take a few test runs. If you need more power you can spin the wheel up. Basically you want to spin it up before a brake or right before the wheels actually lock up. And then, if it locks up at the original setting, then you just spool it back down just a little bit. And then again you want to get it right before lock up. And then you leave your setting alone and basically the brake controller takes care of the rest.
And when installing the brake controller, you have about 70 degrees of movement. So it can be from about roughly about here to about here of angle you have to install on the brake controller. And if you do go past these angles you will see two bars flashing at the bottom there, that tells you that it is pointing down too far. The same thing will apply if you put it up too far, we will say about 90 degrees. It will take a few seconds to show the bars on top too. And then to show you how this works, basically the brake controller works by inertia. There is a little pendulum of movement inside here that actually, when you hit your brakes, it actually slides to the front of the vehicle. The more that pendulum moves towards the front, the more power this brake controller puts out. And then, say you hit your brakes pretty hard it is going to apply the brakes pretty hard.
If you let off the brakes gradually, this will follow in turn. When you hit your brakes, if you have one of the boost settings set on it, it will come on. Again it will say like B2, it will come on 25 percent, almost instantly. And then, it will hold that power for a second and then it will revert back to inertia so you have smooth braking until you come to a complete stop. The boost setting is really nice if you want the brake controller to activate the brake, or the truck actually does a lot of its own braking power. It is kind of hard to show the inertia activated on this brake controller but we will try. Basically, we will just move it a little bit, make the pendulum work and you can see how it puts out numbers and goes back to zero once it is stopped. So you are connected and then you hit your brakes and it is saying zero right now because it does not sense anything. And then, when you back up, it will fill up a little bit with numbers and then go back to zero. And there you have it for part number 90185, the Tekonsha Prodigy brake controller.
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