T@G Brake Controller Gain Setting

tacetman

I am a very new but very proud T@G owner. I purchased a 2018 T@G XL Outback about a month ago lightly used. So lightly used, in fact, that I actually can't find ANY evidence that it was used AT ALL, which is pretty exciting. I have taken it on two trips now of <200mi each. Everything is working great on the trailer. I plan to make sure the brakes are adjusted properly and re-pack the bearings sometime in the next two weeks but given how great a condition it was in I did not make it a top priority.

I have noticed, however, that my brakes sometimes groan when stopping. Originally I thought I had the gain on my brake controller (Tekonsha Prodigy RF) set too low. After giving it some thought I wonder if I may have the gain set too high.

Was wondering if anyone with a proportional controller would tell me what gain setting they use. Bonus points if you also have a Tekonsha controller. Right now I have it set to 9.0 (i.e. when I engage the manual override and give full brakes, the output reads 9.0), but I wonder if that's too much.

beaky

5.8

Sharon_is_SAM

We have the Prodigy RF for our TaB and we set it at 4.5 towing with a mini van. Try turning it down. What is your TV? We hardly use our electric brakes.

tacetman

Thanks Beaky & Sharon. My Tow Vehicle is an FJ Cruiser.

The disparity in weight is pretty large (i.e. my vehicle, which usually has me + spouse + fat labrador + outdoor gear in it) weighs a good bit more than the T@G. I am thinking that the high gain I have set is forcing the electric brakes to do more braking than they need to and they are applying more braking force at soft braking than my car itself.

Thinking I will turn it down and go from there.

Interestingly both the Dexter axle manual and the Prodigy RF manual suggest determining the gain setting by getting up to 25mph and figuring out what gain causes the brakes to lock up and then dialing it down just a bit. Seems extreme!

LuckyJ

I will jump in with a question on this locking the brake procedure.

As anyone of you guys been ever able to block the brakes on the T@G? I have two TV, two different brake controler, and none of them are able to lock the brakes. They do slow down and grabe, but absolutely never blocks the brakes, not even on dirt. But still, I feel they are working.

I do not have a prod.... Brake controler, but I set mine so I feel a small drag when I manualy aplly the brake on the controler. I mainly tow with an a 2005 unlimited TJ, witch is probably the same size and weight with all my off road gears and 2 winches as what you have with your loded FJ.

Btw, nice find on the T@G and welcome on the forum!

beaky

I have an FJ too and turn the controller to zero unless I am approaching a long downhill section of road. I use a moderate setting to "provide" some braking, not full braking.

WilliamA

Heard in a maintenance shop:
"Ask any two mechanics, you'll get three different opinions on it"

This topic is a bit of a sticky wicket as it is so tightly entwined with a number of systems that all determine the immediate level of safety when towing our trailers. My Disclaimer: This is how I set mine. Your methods will depend upon your tow vehicle, your brake controller and your driving style.
My brake controller is as dumb as a stump. It's a good, solid unit and I've not had any problems with it but it's on the low end of the smart-controller spectrum. It gets a signal from the brake light circuit and just comes on. It has 2 settings: One for brake power and one for "timing". Most controllers I'm familiar with have two settings similar to mine.
Smart controllers have the same basic functions and work the same way, but may have a built-in "Decelerometer". It sounds really complex, but isn't really. It's a device (sliding switch or rotary switch) with a weight hanging on it. Some styles use a mercury switch. The theory with a decelerometer is such that the harder (quicker) you stop, the more the weight travels, moving the sliding switch. The more the switch moves during deceleration, the harder the brakes are applied. In the old days, this type of brake controller needed to be indexed for angle. It was easy. There was usually a knob on the side of the unit and once you installed it, you simply turned the knob so the arrow on it was pointing either down or up depending upon the instructions. What that does is level the weight bearing switch so when not activated, it (the hanging weight) is in the down position. Braking force applied moves the weight in the line of travel, applying more or less pressure depending upon the centrifugal force applied.
Nowadays, many brake controllers are smarter and easier to set up, but the theory hasn't changed a whit. They still apply voltage to the brake circuit using a time-based scale. If you read the fine print on controllers, you'll often see things like: "Time-based" or "Reactive" or some other gobbledy-goop word-salad to describe their function. Time-based controllers like mine simply apply the brakes in a curve over time. They apply lightly, getting heavier up to the highest set point. That way, your brakes don't "slam" on causing undue wear and scaring the crap out of you every time they come on.
So....The original posters' question: What to set the controller to? Well, that depends.... I'll refer here to my original disclaimer. I set MY controller pretty light. The T@G brakes are small. The 7 inch drums are tiny, the shoes are narrow and they have much less than half the capability of a 10" drum brake. That said, they are capable of some pretty impressive stopping power. I can easily lock my trailer brakes if I set it to do so. That's the last thing I want, so I set mine based upon a few indicators:
1. "Feel". I know how my Jeep feels when I stop without the trailer. I set my brake controller so that when I stop, it feels a bit heavier than without it. That means the trailer brakes are set light and pushing the Jeep a bit.
2. "Sound". When I hit the brakes, I can hear all manner of noise. The pintle/ball hitch bangs (or dings) against the ball telling me the trailer is "pushing" against the hitch. Keep in mind that if you have the brakes set to a very high setting, you might hear the same noise in the opposite direction. Meaning, the trailer brakes may be very high and applying more force than the tow vehicle brakes. This causes the hitch to go in the opposite direction, pulling against the tow vehicle as the trailer tries to slow down faster than the tow vehicle. It's important to know the difference.
3. "Weather". Weather has a huge effect on braking force. Wet brakes work poorly until they dry out. That means you might not get much trailer braking until the drums heat up and boil off the water. Hot brakes aren't as effective either. If you have brakes dragging enough to heat the drums up a bit, that's making the drum expand, reducing the timing and effectiveness of the brakes.

Other factors that determine brake effectiveness:
1. Ground wire. I know, I know. I'm like a broken record on the forum about the size of the trailer ground wire. Point of fact though, is the brake force applied by the dedicated brake wire cannot be any more effective than the size of the ground returning that voltage to the tow vehicle. It's really that simple and that important. If you can't get your brakes to stop well or have drums that overheat over time. it's a fools' bet that one of the major causes is too small of a ground circuit. With a small ground wire, you'll need to dial your brake controller WAY up in order to get any effective braking. The first thing folks who have ineffective brakes do is crank down on the adjusters thinking that they are out of adjustment. That makes the problem much worse as the shoes start to make contact with the drums without the brakes being applied causing the drums to overheat. That heat quickly transfers through the metal mass in to the hub, heating up the bearings and grease. You see where that is going. Electric brakes are actually quite robust and don't need the close tolerances for adjustment that a hydraulic brake does. They have a lot of travel on the shoes and don't need to "skim" the drum like car drum brakes do. A little-known and discussed fact.
2. Overall brake condition. No lecture necessary here. Worn out brakes are.....well.....worn out.

Getting back on topic, I personally set my trailer brake controller to about (in big-round-numbers) maybe 20-30% on my controller. I have the light-bar display on my controller and when I apply the brakes, I can see 2 bars illuminate on the display. If it's cold out, I might move it up to 3 bars or so. What I want always is not so much to determine "exactly" how much pressure is applied, but that some pressure is applied where I can "feel" it when stopping, making sure that the trailer brakes come in before the Jeep brakes and they are not too aggressive.

I don't feel that there's any perfect formula for setting brake strength. I want to definitely feel that they are coming on, but not too aggressively.

On the OP's original comment:
"I have noticed, however, that my brakes sometimes groan when stopping."

This groaning noise is almost certainly the suspension, not the brakes. When the brakes are applied, the suspension (torsion tube) tends to want to "wind up" as the wheels torque it in the direction of travel. I hear that occasionally on my own trailer. Brake noises tend to be more in the "squeak, squeal, stutter" range of noises. Groans are almost always caused by suspension winding up against the springs.

My best advice is to try different settings. Don't try and set your controller until you've traveled a mile or two. The brake drums will rust up overnight (literally) and when first applied, it'll be like sandpaper in there until the shoes wipe the drums off a bit. Setting them before they scrub will leave you with a setting that is much too low. I often will set my brakes a couple of different times over the course of a few miles. You can easily see (feel) how heavy your controller is set by moving the manual brake lever/button/wheel on the controller and see how much effect the trailer brakes only setting has on how you slow down. They aren't designed to slow the whole rig down. Just the trailer.

I recognize that my answer is a bit of a non-answer. It's about finding the right setting for your use and your rig. But knowledge is power and the first part of the answer of how much is to understand what's going on in the first place. Brakes set too heavy are, in my opinion, more dangerous than brakes set too light. Heavy brakes on a trailer will quickly lock up if the road is wet or slippery, causing more problems than they solve. They should come in light and fast, slowing the trailer just a bit before the tow vehicle brakes come on. That straightens things out and lets the much more powerful tow vehicle brakes do their job better with less screaming (from driver and passengers)

I hope I've provided a bit of insight and food for thought. Your results (and opinion) may vary.....

WilliamA

tacetman

Thanks WilliamA, I appreciate the information and especially the insight very much. Interesting to learn about the ground wire gauge being so important, I hadn't considered that.

I'm willing to bet that I have my controller set too high. Mine was set around 60-75% of the range. Which seems a little silly in hindsight given that my vehicle's brakes are so powerful and the T@Gs are not. I could easily stop the trailer in all sorts of weather with no brakes at all (of course I do not intend to do that!) so no reason to overuse the T@G brakes.

I should clarify that I chose the word "groan" even though it is not quite correct. I wanted to avoid using the word "squeal" since squealing is commonly associated with worn pads and I am fairly confident that the pads are good (having not looked at them) given the newness of the trailer. Just didn't want to throw a red herring out there.

WilliamA

Tacetman,
If your controller is set that high it could cause the shoes to squeal a bit. I know I would
with high braking loads, brake dust can quickly build up in the drum causing an annoying squeal. It's because the grit causes the shoes to "stutter" across the drum face. The frequency (slipping cycle) is very high and can sound like a squeal. There are other causes too (warped drums for ex.) but my money is on brake dust. Turn your controller down a bit and see if it goes away...

WilliamA

sharper

So I presently tow a 2018 320s Boondock with a Jeep Wrangler 4 dr. I find 3.2-3.4 setting on my controller plenty. (Planning on selling and buying a T@G). I'm sure the T@G being lighter and smaller will be less than this setting. Remember many older T@Gs didn't even come with electric brakes....

LuckyJ

@sharper said:
So I presently tow a 2018 320s Boondock with a Jeep Wrangler 4 dr. I find 3.2-3.4 setting on my controller plenty. (Planning on selling and buying a T@G). I'm sure the T@G being lighter and smaller will be less than this setting. Remember many older T@Gs didn't even come with electric brakes....

Regular T@G still don't come with brakes. Only boondock edition or special orders.

sharper

According to Nucamp (I've confirmed) a standard feature on all the 2020 T@G's is electric brakes....they are not an extra. They were optional in the past.

LuckyJ

@sharper said:
According to Nucamp (I've confirmed) a standard feature on all the 2020 T@G's is electric brakes....they are not an extra. They were optional in the past.

Good. over time, one thing I made up my mind on, is when I am not on the market to purchase something, I do not look into them, motorcycle, cars, jeep and trailer alike! lol

So, thank you for updating my knowledge on T@Gs !