Electric hand brake?

[Xventure77]

I've searched around a bit and haven't found anyone that has tried this, possibly for good reasons. My last trailer was an Xventure XV-2 and it had independent hand brakes, which came in very handy when positioning at camp getting unstuck on the trail. I now have an offroad teardrop from offgrid that has Timbren 3500hd axle-less suspension with electric brakes. It does not have a manual brake. I realize I can change the hubs out for models with hand brake levers and add manual brake cables, and I may end up doing that eventually.

My question is whether it is feasible to tap into the wires going to the brakes and run power to them from the on board battery bank using left/right switches. The brakes take about 6-7 amps to actuate. Obviously you would add protection from sending current upstream to the vehicle brake controller, though I'd probably be disconnected when using them. I wouldn't leave them on long, so it shouldn't impact the battery much. Tell me why this is a dumb idea.

 

[dreadlocks]

With hubs that have parking brakes you could leave em engaged all the time, would be nice backup, and you would not be kludging a bunch of wiring to your brakes.. I'm quite fond of KISS approaches.

Your approach seems sound, I've even toyed with the idea.. but it seems like more work for less results than just doing it the right way.. less chance for user error like leaving the brakes engaged and draining battery flat or damaging something at 100% duty.

 

[Xventure77]

Thanks for the responses. Yeah, I toyed with the idea of momentary switches to avoid leaving them on, but quickly decided some lit up marine switches on the tongue box would be more functional. I agree the mechanical option is far superior but hard to justify the $800 in parts when what I have mostly works. Not committed to the idea yet, just wanted to see if I was missing anything.

 

[dreadlocks]

you have the emergency disconnect you can use now right? it'll lock up both wheels but maybe you can hold onto it if your moving it by hand and it gets away you can just yank on that and engage brakes.

I'd go for momentary switches and use latching relays, you could toggle those easy with a finger as yer yanking it about.. they make IP67 momentary switches.. and might still put a master switch somewhere internally to avoid inadvertent activation.. you put a big button or switch on something and some people just gotta press it out of sheer curiosity.