Drawtite 5500 brake controller?

[Rockin]

I have an appointment to have a brake controller installed. The installer who is recommended by many in my area said he is installing a Drawtite 5500 which he has had really good luck with. Any one know about this box?

I found some information that indicates it is not pendulum controlled.

Should I hold out and find a Prodigy or Jordan or go with this? I'll be pulling a 10000+ trailer so I don't want to skimp in the controller.

[rjschoolcraft]

I would prefer something that is proportional to tow vehicle braking effort. I use a Kelsey-Hayse controller and am really happy with it.

[kavik]

I have the prodigy and am really happy with it. Pull a 15K horse trailer. Had a few panic stops and it workesd flawlessly. Nice little features like a diplay that tells you is you have a short in the trailer wiring (wished I had believed it when I fried my brakes!). Best one I have used. Chris

[Rockin]

I am just going for the Prodigy. I cancelled the appointment and will put in the controller myself. Question will be if my friend at the trailer shop can beat Kenedy's price.

The whole mechanical cable to the brake pedal thing swayed me toward the Prodigy rather than the Jordan. There are enough people that swear by both I should be happy.

[DmaxMaverick]

Rockin

Did Tekonsha change the entire design of the Prodigy??? I don't think so.....

The Prodigy was, and is an inertial controller. It is a nice setup, but still an inertial type. If it has a cable to the brake pedal, it is for something other than proportioning.

Jordan is the only electronic proportional controller that I'm aware of. I have used (and would prefer to use) the K/H on older vehicles, but they don't work with ABS.

If you are going with an electronic controller, consider the following:

Prodigy is INERTIAL.

Drawtite is electronic TIMING. (what I currently use).

Jordan is direct proportional. It is mechanically connected to the brake pedal input, and applies brake power according to pedal input. Clearly the best method, but most expensive.

These are all excellent products, but are very different in operation.


If you have been sold on the mechanical connection to the brake pedal, then the Jordan is the one you want, not the Prodigy.

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

Would it be accurate to say:

Prodigy: Electronic, proportional to inertial change in tow vehicle;
Drawtight: Electronic, not proportional to anything, fixed (but adjustable) pulse duty cycle;
Jordan: Electronic, proportional to brake pedal position.

I don

[Rockin]

I in fact am choosing the prodigy because I don't want the cable and mechanical parts. It is nice to know the prodigy uses an IC with same function as pendulum which means there are not internal moving parts to break.

[HowieE]

There are some considerations that have not been mentioned.
Depending on how good your truck brakes are, and we all know the older GM products don't have good brakes, and depending on how many axels your tariler has will greatly effect the combined truck and trailer braking effect.
If you were to choose a pendelum system with a heavy trailer and a truck with poor brakes you would have real trouble stopping since the pendulem would see little effect from the application of the truck brakes and thus transmit almost nothing to the trailer.
If you were to choose one of the so called Timed units you will have a tough time stopping at a tool booth since once set the controller has a mind of it's own. I sent mine back to the manufacture without even going to the dealer with a letter explaining the unit was a death trap and should not be allowed on the market.
Having worn out several pairs of soles on my shoes with the first type and several near death experances on my one and only trip with the second type I have installed a Jordan with some modifications to compensate for the GM brake pedal arm. See details on my site.
The Jordan is as close to a direct hydrolic controllers that were available pre ABS systems. The Jordan also offers one addition feature that is nice to have. You can set the controller to become the dominate braking force and thus prevent the trailer from comeing up and kissing you on a slippery downhill stop. Many will say you can set other types of controllers this way. I mentioned above the number of axels has an effect on overall braking. As the axel number increase the trailer has a greater effect on a pendelum type controller and can cause overbraking evan as you releace the truck brakes.

[rjschoolcraft]

With the pendulum type (mine is that type, it is a Hayes-Lemmerz... I said Kelsey-Hayes earlier, the company changed names. I have two of these, one older under the old name and a newer one with the new name), you can adjust it so that the trailer begins braking immediately without any decleration of the truck. This is accomplished by adjusting the pendulum slightly out of level, so that any time the unit is energized, it is braking. In this manner, the trailer is actually dragging back on the truck when you stop. It works, even on slippery surfaces. I know from my own experience.

When I bought my controller several years ago, I was not aware of the Jordan controller, or I would have bought one. However, this pendulum unit works well. I have to agree on the timed units. They are simply worthless, IMHO.

[Kennedy]

This is the one that has my eye:

http://www.masterbrake.com/brakesmart.html

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

Leave it to JK to find the coolest stuff

[Rockin]

Now that the Prodigy is installed, I looked through its information. Yes, for the accelerometer to work, it requires the vehicle/trailer combination to decrease speed. They also have boost which is a configurable amount of trailer breaking that comes on when the brake is applied. The 13% or however configured amount of boost breaking will start the combination slowing and then the accelerometer will detect the speed decrease.

If you saw my post on the bad towing day, you can see why I haven't gotten to try it out yet. I'll let you know what I can tell.