To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
This is one of our favorite brake controllers, with flawless braking and a tiny dash knob that looks like it came straight from the factory. Its unique off-roading mode helps you handle rough conditions, so get out there and get towing.
Features:
Specs:
The off-road mode is a unique feature of the Redarc Tow-Pro Elite. In this mode, the brake controller will apply your trailer's brakes with a preset amount of power, independent of what your tow vehicle is doing. This is ideal for off-roading or challenging conditions. Set the power low if you're towing through sand or mud so that the trailer doesn't stop with too much force and act as an anchor. If navigating a steep descent, set the power to a higher level to ensure that the trailer doesn't push against the tow vehicle.
To activate the off-road mode, rotate the knob counterclockwise and apply your vehicle's brakes. Push down on the knob twice (2 times within 1 second) and release the brakes. The knob will turn green to let you know that the mode has been activated.
Use the knob to set the braking output -- the maximum amount of power that will be applied to your trailer's brakes. To get more power output, rotate the knob clockwise toward 10. To decrease the power output, rotate it counterclockwise toward 0.
When you apply the tow vehicle's brakes, the knob will change from blue to red to signal that the trailer brakes are being activated. The higher the braking power output, the deeper the red that you will see.
To engage manual override, simply press the control knob. This will activate the trailer's brakes and brake lights independent of your tow vehicle, great for stopping sway or controlling your trailer's momentum in an emergency.
When you are calibrating the brake controller for the first time, the LED lights will signal your progress.
You'll start by braking 20 times or so to let the unit learn its orientation and the direction of travel. You don't need to have a trailer connected for it to calibrate; the only difference is that the knob won't illuminate at all. If your trailer is connected, the LED light will flash green/blue as it calibrates. When the display turns solid blue, initial calibration is complete.
Once done, the unit will remain calibrated. If recalibration is required, it will happen automatically and without LED indication.
The Tow-Pro Elite has almost no mounting restrictions. It comes in 2 pieces: the main unit and the control knob. The main unit can be mounted out of sight and out of the way. You don't have to worry about dinging your knee on a bulky brake controller or interfering with your vehicle's airbags.
The control knob can be installed in any convenient spot that's easy for you to see and access. This can be a blank switch panel, an open spot on your center console, or wherever there's space on your dashboard. A universal mounting panel is included to ensure a clean, from-the-factory look. Custom-fit panels are available for certain vehicles as well. Before you do any drilling, be sure there's enough clearance behind the dash for the entire knob to install!
Once you've decided where you want to put the control knob, you'll need to find a good place to install the main unit. Your only restriction is the 3' cable connecting the main unit and the control knob. Securely mount the box using screws, double-sided tape, or zip-ties (not included). A mounting kit (RE67FR - sold separately) is also available for the Tow-Pro Elite. Do not attach the module to wiring or cables that can shift as you drive!
Then plug the custom-fit harness right into your vehicle and the brake controller and you're done!
If you don't already have a 7-way plug at the back of your vehicle, take a look at our exclusive 7- and 4-way brake-control installation kit (ETBC7 - sold separately). A 30-amp circuit breaker kit (331-CBK30-EB - sold separately) may also be required for installation.
For assistance in properly wiring the Tow-Pro Elite, please refer to the diagrams below:
Proportional braking means that your trailer brakes mimic your tow vehicle's brakes. If you slam on the brakes in your vehicle, your trailer brakes will activate with the same intensity; if you brake lightly, your trailer brakes lightly too. The trailer's braking is in proportion to your vehicle's braking. This saves wear and tear on the tires and the brakes on both your vehicle and trailer.
The Tow-Pro Elite uses an internal 3-axis accelerometer to sense how your vehicle is braking so it can send the right amount of braking power to your trailer. It measures the inertia of your tow vehicle and activates the trailer's brakes to slow at the same rate. The result is uniform braking across your towing setup. No push-pull action - just smooth, proportional braking every time.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hello neighbors. It's Brad here at etrailer. And today we're taking a look and installing the REDARC Tow-Pro Elite brake controller on a 2020 Honda Pilot. Now we're gonna be using a factory pigtail adapter which is gonna allow us to tie into our factory tow package plug, making this a quick and easy plug and play installation. Now, this is what our brake controller looks like installed. And in fact, you can see, this is quite a bit different than your standard brake controller that you may be used to.
Most of them live somewhere underneath here, and they tend to get in the way and you hit your knees on them. Well, REDARC's done a really fine job of allowing you to still have control of your trailer and your manual control by just the push of a button and in a very small footprint, allowing you to keep it nice and OEM looking. Yeah, most of the break controllers you've seen have had digital screens a lot of times, and you can actually set a few different profiles and maybe log a few different trailers in. Well, this one's a little more simple. It doesn't offer as much of fact or different settings to allow for that.
But what it makes up for is simplicity and its small footprint. So you're able to adjust your gain very easy, by just the turn of a knob. And you can have your manual override, just the push of a button. It's also illuminated. So you'll be able to see it at night.
It's also gonna change colors, the harder that you break. So it's gives you all of the functionality of a break controller in a small package, without any extra fluff. Now the installation of this is going to be pretty easy and that's the great part about this, is it is gonna be plug and play using that factory harness. Now, if you don't have a factory 7-Way, that's okay. We're gonna take a look at that and kind of explain what you'll need to do for that.
But speaking of install, let's take a look at that. To begin our installation, the first thing that you're gonna wanna do is check to see if you have a factory 7-Way and you're gonna need this because it has the output for the actual brake controller to send it to the trailer. Now, if you don't have one on your vehicle, you're gonna need to install one in order for the brake controller to work. And part number ETBC7 is gonna be what you need in order to get that accomplished. Now, if you don't have a factory 7-Way and you need to install the ETBC7, when it comes time to get the module in place, you're actually gonna be using this harness that's included with the Tow-Pro Elite. And you'll see you have your wires here, that you'll simply connect to all your different electrical connections as well as your brake signal. And this just plugs into the module. Now, if you're lucky enough to have the tow package already in your car, you can actually pick up this adapter and it's gonna have a factory style plug, allowing you to really make this a plug and play and quick installation, without having to splice any wires. It's got a similar OEM style. So really we just need to find the plug, plug this in, get this to our module, and then we'll make a few more connections and have this installed pretty quickly. The REDARC is really awesome in the fact that, as far as space goes, you can really mount this kind of anywhere, whereas some of your more standard or typical break controllers kind of hang down here, and they can kinda get in the way of things. So the great thing about this is the small footprint. But you still need to plan out where you want it. So you can kind of pick a bunch of different options, kind of whatever's best for you as the driver and having it right where you want it. But something that I suggest, is actually using some of these factory, little knockout plates here. That way if you're not exactly happy with it over time, you can always just replace this rather than a hole in your dash. It's also kind of set up for the driver to actually be able to reach these pretty easily. So it's gonna be really nice while you're driving to just be able to push that button. It'll be easily visible as well. So really what we need to be doing is pulling this out. That way we can get everything plugged in, mounted up, but again, you do wanna plan out where you want this. That way when we run our wires, we'll actually know exactly where we need to go. So our factory plug, based on the instruction manual is telling you it's roughly about this area. So we're gonna want to pull this out and regardless, we're gonna be pulling it out because I am gonna be mounting our actual controller here. So in order to do that, we're gonna need to pop this panel off. And then this section as well, that goes all the way to the other side and wraps around the steering wheel. So to get these popped out, there's just gonna be a series of clips. You can use a plastic trim tool. If you don't have one of these, we actually have 'em here at etrailer. They're really, really nice. You can also, you can kind of just pride with your fingers or use a flathead screwdriver. But the main thing is you'll get this separated by just kind of popping this out. So let's get my tool in here and see if we can't get this popped out. So with that little bit separated, I should be able to work my way up here. And you'll see it, this kind of pops with a series of clips here. So you can kind of see where the clips are and where you need to put pressure points. So even if you can get up on the top, you're gonna wanna pull this straight out. Now with this out, it's gonna be easy to get this pulled down. So I suggest, just kind of grabbing on the inside portion here by the steering wheel and you just kind of pull out out, and then we'll work our way over to the other side. Just take your time here, and you should be able to get those clips to pop, just like that. Now, before you go and pull on this, there's probably gonna be some electrical connections that feed into your controls here. So let's take a look and get those separated. So there's gonna be four clips that we're gonna be separating and they should have little tabs that you'll push on to separate 'em. I noticed that the gap is kind of small to get your fingers in there. So sometimes using a flathead screwdriver to kind of push on those tabs and just lightly tug on it to separate 'em, is gonna be really a lot more helpful than trying to get your hand in there and pinching and pull. So I'm gonna go ahead and get these all separated. So this one here, I just push on this tab. We'll pull that out. This one here, which looks to be our mirror control underneath is the tab. So I'm just gonna kinda push with my finger here underneath it and then pull that, and that's gonna make it a lot easier to get these. So again, get a tab here, a tab here and that separates it down. And then on this side, there's actually this plug that actually goes into this little holder here. You just open this up and that should drop out. In fact, mine just kind of popped out as I was taking the dash, or this panel off. So pretty easy here. So now we can go ahead. I'm gonna set this aside and we'll take a look for our plug. Once we have this out, you can take a look right here and this gray plug is gonna match up to our actual harness here. So pretty easy, we're gonna just snap this in. So we'll just route this up, like so, get this clipped in. And then just make sure it snaps in, give it a quick tag, just to make sure it's actually properly snapped. This is gonna plug into our module just like this, but we need to make sure we find a nice spot for it. It can be mounted kind of in any orientation, as this actually will pick up once you calibrate it, the orientation of the box. So it really doesn't matter which way you do it. You just want it secure. And you're gonna see there's four slots here, and you could run self tappers, but a lot of times the zip tie is gonna be more than enough. But the main thing is you'll be plugging it in here which allows you as you can see, you can kinda put it wherever you want, and that's also gonna make it nice for when you run the wire to the actual brake controller. I think for my purposes here, just to kind of make it easy. This could probably sit right here in this metal cradle here, and then I'll be able to zip tie it. Just make sure you leave enough space for your steering wheel to move up and down, so you still have that adjustability. So I'm gonna go ahead and plug this in now. You also wanna kind of plan out the attack on your wires, just to kinda make sure that all the extra ones are bundled up, so they're out of the way. So you can throw a few curls and zip tie in there. Just kind of tidy these up. So let's go ahead plug this in. So with that plugged in, I actually just took my actual module here and I just zip tied it up using the holes and kind of finding some good spots here. And meanwhile, I also zip tied up the extra cable, just to kind of keep it clean and out of the way. So another thing you're gonna wanna keep in mind, is the fact that the module itself will have to be plugging in this cord as well. So I just aimed it down, that way it's easy to access. So pretty quickly here, and it's just gonna be taking this plug from the coil. I'm gonna leave mine coiled up because our plug is gonna be living right about here. So it's gonna be pretty easy to just leave this coiled. Underneath here, you're gonna find the plug and this should just simply clip into place. So with that clipped in, quick little tug, make sure it's actually attached. That's gonna leave us with just the connection to the actual controller. Now this leaves us to actually mount it up. So with this, we're gonna see this knockout panel. We'll be using this. Now in the kit, you're gonna find that there is one that should be able to pop in, but it is gonna take a little bit of modification, kind of no matter what. So you're left with two options. You can take this factory one here and we'll be cutting this out and being able to get this plugged to actually sit in there, shouldn't be too tricky. You're gonna have a nut on this front side. So really as long as it sits in there to where it's gonna be flush, that's kind of what we're looking for. This one will probably work. You'll have to notch this out a little bit to allow this to actually slide in and kind of clip into place. But honestly, I'm gonna try to use this OEM one, 'cause I know it's gonna clip in really well. And laying it out, it's gonna be pretty easy here. I just kind of take our actual controller here and kind of lay it out, and kind of get a lay of how I wanna do it. So I'm gonna be just notching out this little corner pieces here. So really to get this actually modified, to allow this to sit in there isn't too terrible. You can use just a pair of snips and I'm using these utility knife, just to kind of get some clean angles. So I just took off the little edging here, and then what I did was notch this center out with one side. So it's getting pretty close here. You're gonna start to see that it really can just sit on this here as long as we clear out the top. And then once we kind of get a nice clean spot there, we'll determine exactly where we need to drill the hole for it. So I think quarter inch drill bit should be fine to center up here and that's gonna allow that to kind of poke through. But I'm gonna go ahead and make sure I clean up all this flashing here, so it's a nice clean fit. So here's kind of what our finished product looks like, as far as using the factory one. Basically you're gonna want to enlarge it enough, the hole to where this will actually be able to slide in there. And really, I just kind of got this part flush and notched this out to where this will slide in there. So really you just need this to be able to sit, kind of flush against the plastic. Again, this is kind of up to you. You can probably make this one work, but I really like the fact that this is gonna be a factory clip that's gonna clip in, it's gonna sit really nice and it's gonna look pretty well factory. So one of the tips here, before we actually get this mounted into place, you're gonna wanna dial this all the way counterclockwise to zero it out. Now, sometimes making it easier to get these on, I'm just using an old zip tie to kind of line it up how I want, get that portion, that little notch there centered up, and then we'll just press this on. So now at this point we can go ahead and we'll take this plastic nut here and this will just draw this in nice and tight here. I think this is gonna be a 13 millimeter. So if you need to tighten it down with the socket, go ahead. But really you don't have to get too crazy on it. Just some make it snug, you don't wanna crack the plastic. But once we have this tightened down, we can actually take our knob here, make sure it's still zeroed out, and we'll set it right there. And that's kind of what it's gonna look like. So now we're getting ready to get this all put back together. So, we're gonna wanna make sure that this is kind of tucked up out of the way. But what we can do is actually get our panel, and we can actually run. I'm gonna undo one of these twist ties, leaving the other one on there. And that's just gonna allow me a little bit of extra room while putting this all together. And really we can just route this through the hole as we put this back in place. So now let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and get our connections set up and we can always come back and zip tie this up. It may even live in here to where it's not gonna cause any issue. But for now, we'll just get this all plugged back in. So make sure you have all four plugs going to their respective homes. And when putting this back up, make sure you get this back in place, and that's gonna help kinda make sure everything cinches up nice. Okay, so now we have this pop back in place. I can actually put my side panel on here as well. We'll go ahead and we'll clip this in. I'm just gonna give it a quick push and you can see that it's illuminating. So that's a good sign, everything's working well. So now we just slide this back in, and get it popped into place. So now, really all that's left to do is calibrate our actual brake control. And the reason being is this is based off movement. It uses the g-force to kind of determine when you are slowing down, allowing you to get those brakes on. To do this, you'll hook up to your trailer and you'll see the blue and green flashing light. And that means it's searching for that calibration. So really all you have to do, hook up to your trailer, and take it out and you're gonna be up to about 10 or 15 miles per hour, and you're gonna hit the brakes. And what that's gonna do is that module's gonna pick up where it's actually low located and situated in underneath our dash and it's gonna find its home. So we'll do that until we get a solid blue light here. So I'm just gonna be in our parking lot here, and I'm gonna get up to about 15 miles per hour and then hit my brakes. I'm gonna continue this, looking at my light, checking to see when it actually turns blue. After about four hard stops. After getting up to 15 miles per hour, we can see this is turned solid blue. So that means that we are calibrated. And now was a look in insulation at the REDARC Tow-Pro Elite brake controller on a 2020 Honda Pilot..
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