phoenix2013

We'll tackle wiring the DirecLink tomorrow.

Here's the deal, the customer in distress, juggling several events, states apart. Buying truck in one place, picking up a commercial trailer in another, needing wiring to accomplish the mission. Solution, throw together temporary wiring, zip tied to the truck, make it pretty afterwards. However, the effort provided oodles of material for a seminar for the Jackalopee University faculty. First, the basic tenet, wiring the heavy cables and taking care of the lights is only one third of the job. Wiring the brake controller and the battery power circuits are the other two thirds. It starts with three additional wires. Length of 16 gauge red wire, 12 gauge blue wire and 12 gauge black wire, connected as shown above. The red wire plugs into a splitter supplied with each Jackalopee. The lengths of the wires needed vary from installation to installation so have a generous length (it's cheap by comparison), the bundles you see here are about 10 feet each. The red and blue wire take care of the brake controller, the black wire the charging circuit. More details after supper, University faculty schedule.

Bring two wires from the DirecLink to the Jackalopee blue and red, I'll have more "tips" how to wire the Jackalopee later today on the thread I started below.

Been quiet for a while, processing "life and old age". Currently in New Hampshire after leaving 100 degree weather in Florida and arriving in New Hampshire to 42 degrees and rain. Perfect for those who advocate "I like the seasonal changes". Primary reason to be in New Hampshire this weekend, two grandfathers graduating from High School and moving on to colleges. Caught one of them with a long lens. Not to be outdone by this generation I'm proud to report that I have obtained my own advanced degree from the University of my choice. I chose one of those instead of the engraved faculty chair as the graduation remembrance. Since the "university" is in South Dakota, it took place remotely via zoom which created quite a stir when some individuals turned the computer cameras on prior to sitting down. Nevertheless, reading some of the recent post a sense a need for "refresher" course and there is a new development of the Jackalopee install area which might be helpful. I'm in the midst of small project for a customer which should be "illustrative", this is its start. To continue I have made the following purchases. An odd assortment of parts which might be puzzling even to the "veterans". So, as encouraged by by a recently retired luminary, "lets get after it" and unlike the Ivy League places I welcome open discussion, different opinions, even contrary opinions.

The web and social media platforms provided a massive leap in ability to gather information and exchange information. But, like the Grail Knights tells Indiana Jones, " you must choose wisely which cup one sippeth' from". Social platforms also welcomed hordes of exuberant, misinformed and opinionated down to lonely, vicious and misadjusted. The Facebook HDT forum some has good stuff from time to time, but it disappears buried by the exuberant, misinformed and opinionated. To differentiate things, on the Facebook HDT forum you sign up for the freshmen class in the HDT University, on this forum you are at the Junior, or Senior level. The exuberant, misinformed and opinionated, do not do well here. But I give you that, posting informative pictures to go with your dialog on Facebook is a breeze.

The last re-write to 16 pages was 11-03-2021. Send me an email and I'll be happy to forward it to you. 12 years ago all that was available was just the Jackalopee. You got the unit and you were on your own or you installer was on his own. Starting few years back a wiring kit was made available. Currently about half the units sold are kits going to DIY guys. About half of the manual shows how to wire the various components of the kit and end up with a reliable installation which also looks good.

I love to talk to DIY folks and I understand that 16 pages is a lot. Often during those "chats", folks learn, "Oh, it can do that and that too". The issues usually crop up when the manual is not even "consulted" because it's just a few "stupid wires that anybody can figure out". If I could tell you what you need to know in four pages, believe me it would be four pages, there is no profit in instruction manual being a book. Another story. I got a really angry call from a guy who put it together and things were just "not happening". I started asking him some basic questions about how he wired it, but he kept interrupting me because he had a point and I was just wasting time with the fundamentals. Then he really unloaded on me saying, "Look, I've been servicing and wiring airplanes and jets all my life and this just doesn't make sense". But I kept plodding along and asking questions and all of the sudden he stopped talking and hung up on me. Apparently the light have donned on, which didn't give me chance to ask him if FAA was investigating a crash of any of his clients.

Needles to say I get fair amount of calls in spite of the 16 page installation manual and 2 pages of quick tips for those who are "terrified" by 16 pages. I learn to accept these phone call with stoicism and even derive some entertainment from those tales. Two happened over this weekend. One from a trucker who was not happy. He's not electrically savvy so he brought the Jackalopee and his Volvo to a Volvo dealer. They spent and charged him for five hours of labor installing an air over electric brake controller and the Jackalopee. Not an unreasonable amount of time for both. The problem was that the whole shebang worked exactly the same, five hours. My "interrogation" revealed that the Volvo guy apparently did not read the 16 pages or the 2 pages. The Jackalopee plugs into the standard 7 pin DOT plug that every truck has and then you add wires from the brake controller and from the truck batteries. His Jackalopee plugs into a separate plug that the Volvo tech "created" and mounted next to the DOT plug. Since I was not privy how this "immaculate conception" was created, I could not render much wisdom except to hire another "manual savvy" individual, start over and deposit the "immaculate conception" in the trash barrel. The second individual transitioned from pulling with the pickup to pulling with the semi. He had an "assumption" going, "well my, pickup used to charge the battery in the fifth, now I got nothing". "Did you bring a wire from the truck batteries to the Jackalopee, it's in the manual". "Well no, where does it go?". "Switched tab, it's at the top". "You see, pickup has +12V in the RV socket, DOT socket does not, needs a separate wire, it's in the manual". But he wasn't done yet. "My RV has backup lights, they are on all the time as soon as I plug it in". "That's a rare RV, backups are powered by the yellow wire in the Jackalopee, you have to bring that signal from the truck, is there anything connected to the tab associated with yellow wire?". "No, nothing is there". "Pull the yellow wire from the tab, stick it up in the air and see if there is +12V on the crimp lug. I would suspect there is, otherwise how would the light stay on". "What if there is?" "You need to find an RV Whisperer, remember, most RVs are wired in Indiana by Amish folks, the don't believe in electricity and love oil lamps". 😂😂

It's not that sophisticated, it's up to the operator and they have a really good guy. The CNC software primarily predicts the behavior of the material so that after the bend and spring back the angle is dead nuts on. It considers, material, the grade of material, thickness, bend radius, etc. Interesting thing I learned at Young's is that given all that it can still screw up. It took them a while to figure out that steel mills lie like a rug (particularly about the imported crap), they say that the material meets these or those parameters, but Lord only knows what they threw into the furnace to make it. The plate Young's use for bending purposes they purchase from specific vendors. The brake is just a standard 10-12 foot brake, so my challenge is think like and operator designing this stuff, think through the bending sequence and not design an impossible bend that you can't get to when the other bends are created. I like this new "intellectual venture". It's important to maintain engineering pragmatism doing this, if the brake operator tells me, I can't make this bend, or I don't have a die to get in there to do this, I change the design to make it possible. On the main assembly it goes from 6 pieces down to 2 pieces. We eliminate at least an hour of precision jigging and welding, take out good amount of weight, retaining half inch material in the areas only where we need it. Note that the secondary machining for the jaw pin counterbore goes away courtesy of the laser cutting two different size holes.

We are having fun right now. Holes are all lined up. Quite a bit of engineering went into the inner insert. Ok, genius call, genius call. WHAT'S THE NEXT COMPONENT I NEED TO DESIGN TO MAKE THIS WORK? In the meantime Young's Welding is spurring the Old Goat on by doing things like this.

Congratulations Tim. In the days "yonder" when I ran manufacturing and SERVICE departments, I was always looking for guys like you to be service technicians. Only one out of 3-4 guys, would have that kind of perseverance and what I call reverse logic. It's easy to learn how to test things that work. Much harder to figure out, "what kind of screw up would make it behave LIKE THAT" The Old Goat

Project went dormant for a few months, but was resurrected, thanks to a new year resolution to "git it done". Holes in three different parts (bent), hmmm, not too cool, better check on those bend radiuses Here's a dimension that should make everyone happy 0.250" You should not high hitch into the bottom "mushroom" regardless how crappy (thick) glide plate you slap onto the pinbox

If you have hydraulic brakes on the fifth, BlueDot is the king and anything else are court hanger ones, fools and jesters. Instantaneous, totally proportional, reliable, no stinkin' brake controller, no wiring and looking for the brake controller wire. I'll talk about it some more on the other thread. One more tip on the electric brake controllers. Having good connection to the truck brake lights circuit is imperative, it's that signal that tells them to "go to work and start braking". Hence the tip how to do it in the Jackalopee, two options. Double the red wire from the brake controller and the red wire from the truck into the BRAKE LIGHTS tab utilizing the doubler supplied with each Jackalopee Or crimp those two wires into a single crimp lug (yellow)

Yes, any relay in any order in the lights circuit. Sounds like your pump has a built in DC to AC converter if it activated with 12VDC. Try running your brake controller in "electric brakes mode", not hydraulic mode and see if it works.

You mention pump, I'm assuming you have electric over hydraulic brakes in the trailer. You have basically three separate circuits which have to work together. The brake controller, the Jackalopee and the hydraulic pump in the trailer. 1. The brake controller. You have to make sure that the brake controller is the type that can "talk" to the hydraulic pump. Better (meaning more expensive) controllers can be set to work with electric brakes (DC mode) or hydraulic brakes (digital, PWM mode). In electric mode it's a simple voltage over current, 0 to 12VDC situation, 2,3 5,8,12 VDC. The higher the voltage coming out of the controller, the more current is going to the pucks (magnets) in the trailer drums. By the time you get to 8-12VDC you probably will be locking the brakes on the trailer. In hydraulic brakes, the pump circuit doesn't give rat's ass about varying voltage and current, it doesn't understand it, it's digital. The electronics in the pump, which decides how hard to turn the motor to develop hydraulic pressure to the disk brakes (or shoe brakes), typically runs on 5VDC and is looking for a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal from the controller. That signal typically is a 1KHz (1,000 pulses per second) square wave and each of the pulses varies in the length when it's up or down. 0% up, no pressure, 50% up, half pressure, 100% up, full pressure. Since the two modes are drastically different you really have to know your brake controller and how you get it working in the proper mode. 2. The Jackalopee. The Jackalopee on the other hand doesn't give a rat's ass about all that. It's a connection (piece of wire) from the brake controller to the pump. It's just as happy to transfer varying current or varying pulses from one side to the other. The "level" LED in that circuit gets activated by either type of signal (voltage or pulses) and might dim slightly depending on the intensity of either. 3. The pump. It has two sides (AC and DC). AC is that digital PWM signal coming from the controller. DC is the 12VDC power coming from the trailer battery. The electronics in the pump decides how much of that 12VDC current from the battery is needed by the motor to develop needed hydraulic pressure. The battery in the trailer needs to be up to snuff and working. Do you have properly wired and working battery charging circuit in the Jackalopee? The single relay circuit I talked about. 4. The "getchas". Does you brake controller have the built in DC to AC (digital) converter allowing it to operate in either mode? Do you know how to program it into that mode? In the early days when there were not many, or any of the PWM controllers the pumps were supplied with an additional module which would do the DC to AC conversion and would work with DC only brake controllers. Understand your pump and what it expects and not expects. Best solutions. Get a sophisticated controller that works well and works well in both modes, such as DirecLink, Or get both parts from the same manufacturer like Dexter. Dexter sells both, pumps and controllers, they know how to talk to each other.

I troubleshot a brake circuit problem the other day (over the phone), he was getting no brakes with electric over hydraulic. Asked him if the hydraulic pump in the fifth was running when someone hit the manual brake controller lever. NADA! The culprit, dead battery in the fifth.

The only circuit where you want to put the 40/60 relay is the single one at the top right, since it carries the charging current from the truck batteries to the trailer batteries. The other four can be anything, even 10/20, since all they would see is 1 or 2 Amps and that would be with the old incandescent lights, even less with LED lights. Brake circuit does not involve any relays, it's basically a short running across the printed circuit board from a tab on the left to the tab on the right. Take a careful look at the PCB you'll see it. The Old Goat

From about 2004 to 2012, wife and I were heavily involved with the MDT BoF group. The group right above ours in the list of forums. The relationship soured, partly because the HDTers were not very kind to the pickup and MDT owners and created their own "dark side" HDT BoF forum. Some of you old-timers might remember this. Nevertheless, this was (and is) the group from which we emerged and I remember the tremendous activity, technical exchanges and long time friendships we established in those years. Also in those years we took over the MDT BoF quarterly Newsletter and made it into a "powerhouse" of publication (from 4-6 page "flyer" to 32 pages publication some quarters). Since I was in my archives (working on the other post), I caught a little bit of humor in the Fall 2007 issue Here's the humor and hence the title

Had a nice dinner with Mark last night, he's back in the frozen north east for a bit and will be back to proper Florida climate in a week or two. Did a bit of "interrogation" about his rig. 1. The bike "garage" is a separate room in the back. 6 feet long, about 10 feet high, width if rig's width 102 inches. Access from the side through 36 inch wide door. The central duct extends into the room providing same heating and air conditioning as in the rest of the rig.. Custom bike racks are bolted to the walls and can be easily removed. Can be easily converted to bunk room, office, shop or massive storage. 2. Kitchen appliances. I was expressing certain opinions garnered over the years of RVing in many rigs, but Mark requested, "please don't be unkind to Dometic", nevertheless he's done a lot of research on that front. There are companies out there such as https://applianceoasis.com/shopping/ who cater to the off road, boondocking, tiny house, etc. crowds who manufacture and sell appliances with minimum energy consumption, whether these are DC, AC or propane. The cooktop, the range, the dishwasher and the refrigerator were chosen with that in mind. I might add at prices that most RVers would probably balk at. The AC refrigerator and dishwasher we believe was the first ever done in a fifth (part of the reason it took a year to build it.) 3. I forgot about a little "luxury" item which is built into the kitchen cabinet (next to the giraffes), an 8 bottle "wine cellar" which will keep those bottles at a proper temperature for serving. 4. The washer and dryer were also chosen for their efficiency, the dryer is 110VAC and it will work if you only have the 30 Amps instead of 50 Amps of shore power. 5. All this required serious energy. On the AC side there are three sources: the conventional shore power, Onan 6500 Watt LP generator and a massive MagnaSine (pure sinewave) DC to AC converter/charger. To maneuver all that power there are two transfer switches and all kinds of other "stuff" for monitoring, fusing, routing, and etc. 6. On the DC side Mark started with six 12VDC batteries going to the rig and the MagnaSine converting 12VDC to AC for the appliances. He felt he needed more so he "upsized" to two massive gel cells which you normally find on an ocean going yachts. With the exception of the rig heating and air-conditioning and the clothes dryer he can run the whole rig for a period of 24 hours through the MagnaSine from the batteries alone. He does not recommend running batteries too low on such an "experiment", particularly with those other sources of power available. And for those times when the rig is sitting unused and unpowered, there are solar panels to trickle charge the battery bank. 7. The front jacks you see above, that was also an $8K upgrade, after the original jacks did not survive the "experiments" with the air suspension, I described earlier. Original jacks were 12K for both, these are 12K each and are used on SpaceCraft's semi trailers. 8. For you plumbers and waste water engineers, there is a 12 gallon hot water tank heated by both propane and AC. There are three plus one storage tanks. The three are: fresh, grey and black, the fourth one is additional grey tank for kitchen only, since the kitchen is so far forward. 9. Back to the TV compartment. See that long compartment below the TV shelf? It was built to house full 88 keys piano keyboard, he even remembered the model, Kurzweil KG200 10. The TV (still in there) is a 50" and the first TV that won the battle 15 years ago between plasma and LCD (it's an LCD). The price he paid for it was similar to what you see today in home theater setups you enter after someone let you in with a key. Mark was joking that when replaced with a modern 50" you'll gain 120 pounds, the thing weighs 130. Of course, there is a surround sound provided by CambridgeSoundWorks speakers and equipment. Although no longer around, this website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_SoundWorks will tell you why Mark would be attracted to their products. 11. In general, the rig is 43 feet long, it weighs loaded 27K, the pinbox is a straight down and rated for 30K, the pin weight is 7,500 lbs. Mark mentioned that when he was constructing his New York campground and domicile and moving lot's of "stuff" from Mass to NY he had the rig sometime up to 34K GVW. 12. He has been pulling all the time the rig with the first ET Junior and the Super Binkley head, both of which he designed specifically for that rig (very interesting story how this came about I might share with you). It's also the first time the 13,500 lbs. airbag was utilized in ETs. 13. There are two furnaces and two air-conditioners for comfort, feeding the center ceiling duct, the SpaceCraft signature item. 14. There are four slide outs, three have slide out toppers (the entertainment center one does not). All three have been replaced about 5 years ago. 15. Mark said that in 15 years he put about 120K miles on the Volvo, he estimates that between 80-90K was pulling the rig. 16. One thing he says will have to be replaced quickly are the 17.5 inch tires. They are seriously past their date codes. He was concerned pulling the rig from New York to Florida and from Florida to Missouri, although both trips went without "incidents". This is a once in the lifetime opportunity for someone to own a special rig like this, this is why I am doing this. I had a rig very similar to this one (mine was 10 years old when I bought it) and it was an astounding experience every time we hooked it up and took it someplace. From the hits I see on this thread there is quite an interest following it. Mark said that he commissioned SpaceCraft to appraise it and offer it for sale (after they take care of few things he requested). He asked Wyatt Troutman to handle this since he was very much involved with the original build of the rig. So if any one has this "burning desire" (it was known as "car fever" when we were 16 and just got the driving license), contact Wyatt. One note here, SpaceCraft will be exhibiting next week at the Tampa RV show, which is busy week for RV companies, so Wyatt might be busy with other things.

Yea, with one of those who needs the fifth. I'm guessing it was built for a racing crew going from events to events.

More archive pictures from the day we picked up the unit at SpaceCraft 15 years ago. Mark with Marsha and Wyatt Troutman. Marsha sold the company to Greg Wallman, Wyatt is still with the company. Yours truly with Wyatt, yes the airbrakes need to be attached. While we were there there was a custom puller/toter that SpaceCraft built, naturedly I needed to take a "tour". Looking from the truck cab back. From back forward Bathroom and the kitchen There will be more on the signature round dinette.

Here's the rest of the tour, into the bathroom and the bedroom, starting with the vanity build. Separate toilet room on the right. Bedroom storage compartments. In future posts will get into mechanical, electrical and plumbing. As part of electrical system it has a 5KW Onan generator, LP powered, no need for separate gas or diesel storage.

Don't know, but will meet with Mark tomorrow morning. He had a small list of repairs and upgrades to be accomplished by SpaceCraft. I don't know how this is going. Again, that's Mark, he doesn't want the unit to go on the market unless it's perfect.

Ok, time to talk about giraffes. Here's the picture of the proud owner at SpaceCraft in the rig's living room. There are two slides in the living room area. On the right the entertainment area and on the left, seating area to enjoy the entertainment. Like everything else, the entertainment area was designed to accept the biggest damn flat screen TV available 15 years ago and audio/visual gear worthy of the movie theatre. In the seating area there is a luxurious couch to park your, you know what and the giraffes. The giraffes was a requirement for Mark's lovely wife, who goes by "she who must be obeyed", so he dutifully obeyed. There was a discussion about moving the giraffes to the new motorhome, but the smaller footprint and square footage made it impossible, so they will go the lucky new owner of the rig. The last two pictures I took just before Mark drove the rig to SpaceCraft with the two slides brought in. Does this look like a 15 year old unit, Mark takes meticulous care of his stuff. Mark and I will be getting together this Saturday. He has been living and working remotely in the new rig for few weeks and is bringing the motorhome back to the dealer in Port St. Lucie to take care of "the list". These day, even on the brand new stuff, you can expect to have "the list". I can let you in on a new "development". There will be a new "side tale", which involves yours truly, Mark, SpaceCraft and his new Jayco motorhome.

Time for the tour of the interior. The rig was configured with having four sections. Front kitchen, center living room, rear bathroom and bedroom and beyond that a separate compartment with a separate door to house racing bikes. Mark and Dianne are serious racers in tandem divisions and in off road racing. Mark did a lot of research on conventional 110VAC appliances and how to power these from massive battery banks (more on that later). I believe this was the first time this was tried and started the trend to install "real kitchen appliances" in RVs. As I mentioned before Mark designed both the kitchen and living room floors and spent few weeks at SpaceCraft installing these. The kitchen slide out contains the signature round SpaceCraft dinette. More on that later. The left side housed more of the (researched) high end kitchen appliances. On the lower level you can see the extended living room slide waiting for the installation of the couch and the "giraffes", yes giraffes, but that's enough for today.