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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey, everyone. Ryan here at etrailer. Today on our 2021 Ford F-150, we're gonna be showing you how to install the Roadmaster 12 Volt Outlet Kit. But before we do that, let's check this out and make sure it's gonna be right for you. This outlet kit is gonna be for those of you who are looking to use a portable type braking system like this old brake buddy here. And that's because the vast majority of these portable ones get power from a plug like this.
You know, kind of your classic cigarette lighter type plug, 12 volt power plug. And the reason that you would need a kit to power something like this up because with these F-150s, when you're in flat tow mode, your factory one will be inactive and ain't gonna have power, right So your system isn't gonna receive that power. With the outlet kit though, you can hook it up directly to the battery. That way it has power all the time, regardless if your truck's in flat tow mode or not. On our truck I have the socket mounted up right here.
And it comes with a little bracket, which is pretty convenient 'cause you can kind of tuck this up out of the way to where you don't see it. But this easily pulls out of that bracket, and if you give yourself a little slack in the wiring there, you kind of pull that to you to make it easier to plug in your supplemental braking system. This outlet is going to be capable of handling 20 amps, so that's more than enough for the vast, vast majority of the supplemental braking systems out there. And you can always use it for other accessories too, you know, maybe to charge your phone or maybe a small tire inflator, something along those lines. Now with that said, with this particular kit, to put it on our truck, I did have to use quite a bit of extras.
I needed some extra wiring, and different types of connectors and everything. And with that in mind, even though this one will work just fine and get the job done, for the F-150, I feel like there is a better kit out there that would be more suited for a vehicle like this. It's made by Demco. It'll accomplish the same thing but it comes with, you know, more wiring, and a few of those extra connectors and stuff. Just more of a complete kit.
It makes a little more sense for our Ford truck here than this one. But it'll still work. No big deal there. But other than that, at the end of the day, you know, it's pretty straightforward. If you're using a supplemental braking system when you flat tow and it uses that 12 volt outlet type plug, this is gonna be something that you're gonna need to think about picking up so you can power everything up. As far as the installation goes, it's really not bad. You know, like I said, we had to use a few extras. It had to use about say 10 to 12 foot of extra wiring and you know, a couple ring terminals and butt connectors, things of that nature to get it done. But you just run it through the firewall into the engine compartment over to the battery, mount up your socket there. That's really all there is to it. So feel free to hang around. We'll go ahead and get started on it now. To begin our installation, we're gonna be working here in the front seat of our F-150. And first thing that you want to do is take your power cord here, and they give you a bracket. And you put the bracket over the ends of the wire like this. All right, we'll just feed that all the way through. Just gonna snap that in for now. Eventually we'll mount this up to somewhere underneath the dash. But now what I'm gonna do, since these are gonna have to get ran into the engine compartment, we do have a factory grommet under the dash that we can utilize, but it's not very big and I don't really want to enlarge it any more than we have to. So I feel like this will have a hard time kind of fitting through there. And I'm just gonna cut it off, and we can reattach it later. Just if you do it this way, remember what's what, you know So for example, our fused end here, which will go to power, has some little white letters on the wiring. If you need to put a piece of tape or mark it, do what you need to do. I'll cut that. And then I'll pass this end through the grommet and the firewall into the engine compartment, and I'll show you how it turned out. I was able to pass our wiring through that grommet, and here's where it is located. In the engine compartment, this is where our power wire came through, and it's definitely gonna fall short considering our battery is all the way over on the passenger side. So we're gonna extend it. And to do that, you can just carefully cut in between there. Peel them apart a little ways. And then I like to just kind of clip off a half inch or so. Just give us a fresh start in case we, you know, nicked one of the wires and we we inchesre separating them. And you can strip the installation back. Give that wire a twist. Do the same thing with this one. And I have some wiring here. And since we're extending it, I decided to increase the size or thickness of the wiring that we're extending. So this is 14 gauge wire, and this factory stuff here is 16. So a little bit thicker diameter. Shouldn't lose as many amps, you know, going over a longer distance. And I probably have 10 foot, 10 or 12 foot total of this. And since I have the same color, I just put some blue tape on one just to know, you know, what one's the power wire and keep everything sorted. So with that said, I put one butt connector on already. And take another one. Slide that over. Crimp it down. Then hook them up to the factory wiring here. I'm sorry, the original wiring. And I'm using these heat shrink style of connectors which is what I recommend, especially, you know, being somewhat exposed to elements and everything under the hood. We'll come back with our heat source and seal up ends. (heater blows) I got our wiring routed over, and it's just loosely routed now. You know, once we get everything working I'll come back, zip tie it up, you know, make it look good and everything. I brought it over here to the battery. And I did a couple things. One of them, I just crimped on a ring terminal and attached it to the negative post on our battery here. So that's the ground. And the positive side's gonna essentially work the same way, except I took our fuse holder and another butt connector. Connected it to the power wire there. And on the other end of the fuse holder, I changed out that little spade terminal that was on the originally to a ring terminal. And I'm gonna go ahead and pull the fuse out for now because I don't want it to be hot when we're mounting up the the socket. And we can come to our power post and remove this nut. This nut is gonna be an 11 millimeter. So we'll remove that. And I just try to kind of hold down on the factory wires while I'm doing this so I don't lose connection. And this is another wire from a charge line I installed earlier on. I was just waiting to do this so I could do it all at once. But we'll take this end of our fuse holder. Put that on the post. And we can reinstall the nut. (screw tightens) Moving back inside of the truck, we can get our connector plug mounted up. And we're gonna be working underneath the dash right here in this area. I got our connector plug mounted, and there's just a little piece of metal that was under the dash that I utilized. You could screw it right to that if you wanted. I opted to just, I have another little piece of metal that I had laying around, connected it to that just to kind of extend it over and get an easier shot at it when we go to plug everything in. So at this point, once you have it mounted up, go ahead, put the fuse in the holder, and we can test it out. We're using our plug here for a portable type supplemental braking system. So I got that set up, and once we plug this in, our system should get power. So it's turned on, it's filling up full of air, kind of doing its thing so we know it's getting power and our connector plug is working properly. With all that done though, we're good to go. And that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the Roadmaster 12 Volt Outlet Kit on our 2021 Ford F-150.
Product arrived in a timely manner and in good condition. Installation was a snap. Very satisfied with service provided by Etrailer.
Installer recommended this to power the Even Brake system. Probably not necessary if your vehicle has one built in.
I ran this to the hot wire coming out of the 7 wire plug for the coach, I had to add wire to reach the front of the car. It has power any time I’m hooked up to the coach, I use it for my portable blue ox braking system.
I ordered the item from Kelly P online; she was great then. I paid an additional fee to have the order delivered in 2-days. The shipment never arrived. I tried calling and emailing her but she wouldn’t reply. Fortunately i called the customer service line and was refunded the item and cost of the additional shipping.
Great videos to assist with installatio n.
Worked great until it totaled the car. Installation was fairly simple. We used it for 5000 miles with no problems to power our Blue Ox brake.
lighter cylinder doesn't fit bracket. I bought this as a kit if it does't fit its not & should not be sold as a kit. Spent an hour filing bracket to fit cylinder. Not happy.
Pretty simple . Keeps battery charged.
easy to set up and works great
Needed for towing for the lights and have had no issues at all using this for the last year
Working great
Provided valuable consultation on device needed to resolve my needs.
Works great
fairly easy install when you follow the video's
Works just as it should. Easy to instal l.
I did not like this at all but it works.
I'm installing this currently. It is very well made and installation is quite simple. This is a dash install for me as I'm using this to power my Furion monitor that sits on my dash.
Good instructions and easy to instal tnx to Lori AB for putting my order together
Had this installed to power my patriot braking device, works great!
Works as designed. Use it every time we attach our toad.
Great device. Gives that much needed HOT accessory socket inside the car for the braking system and when not towing, other accessories that you want to dtay connected to the battery when the ignition is switched off. (inverter for a laptop or tablet charger for instance or even a small TV.) Could be a little less expensive but it IS a higher amperage socket than you can find at the local car parts store. Quick and easy install. Recommend wire loom around the wires to protect them from wear in the engine compartment
This 12 volt wiring kit was easy to install. I use it to provide power to my Roadmaster 9400 Even Brake supplemental braking system in a 2017 Chevrolet Equinox. It is quality product. The Video by etrailer.com provided a helpful addition to the instruction supplied with the kit.
Jimd
7/28/2018
Still performing great. Easy installation. I recommend this kit.
I watched the installation video before purchasing this Outlet Kit. My installation of it was into a 2010 Subaru Forester and was no different than the video. It went without any difficulty.
The only weak point to the kit in my opinion is the brass connection piece that attaches to the fuse. It fit over the fuse connection fin without any problem.
The shortfall comes when one connects the female positive connector to the exposed part of the brass connector. The positive connector is much wider than the brass connector which goes on the fuse, making the connection loose. I crimped the positive connector in order to keep it attached to the brass connector.
I ran the outlet wire under the door sill, in the wire trough there so the outlet would be in the rear seat area. I use the outlet to power my 12VDC car refrigerator.
James L.
7/14/2022
It performs perfectly. I am extremely satisfied with the product.
Simple, easy, effective. What else do you want.
The outlet kit worked well. Needed an outlet to power a Brake Buddy. Mounting was not as secure as I could like. The line to the fuse adaptor can come loose. For a 20 amp line the connection should be rock solid.
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Jim H.
1/2/2021
Awesome. Great power source for cell phone charging or an inverter for powering a laptop