Valley "Odyssey" controller installation

Four years ago a local RV mechanic installed a Tekonsha "Voyager" brake controller in my Ford F-150 tow vehicle. It's worked fairly well except that a better controller might have prevented a minor accident that I had in 2002. On that occasion I was towing our 3124KS in heavy afternoon traffic on a road that led downhill. The cars in front of me stopped and I braked, but, was not able to stop completely before hitting the sedan in front of our truck. I must have been going about 5 mph at impact because the only damage to the sedan was an oil can dent of its plastic fender. A bystander popped it back out and surprisingly there were no scratches at all on the bumper. On the advice of a friend, however, the young female driver asked that an ambulance be summoned to take her to the hospital. :-( :-( After the accident I discovered that there were better brake controllers to be had. A Prodigy might have stopped truck and trailer in time, I feel.

On level highways the Voyager has worked very well. A couple of times it stopped our rig very quickly during "Emergency" braking situations.

When Valley Industries "Odyssey" brake controller was mentioned on another thread recently, I decided to look into it. This resulted in my ordering one from BSA of Ohio. It arrived within a week's time and cost me $95, including shipping (an eBay "Buy it Now" item).

Not having installed a brake controller before, I reread the instructions several times and pondered each step before proceeding with it. The wiring connections for both Voyager and Odyssey were the same: red wire to brake pedal switch, blue to connector for trailer, white to negative side of battery and black to positive side of battery, but, via a 30 amp., 12 volt autoreset circuit breaker. What's an autoreset circuit breaker, I thought? After tracing the black wire from the Voyager's black wire into the engine compartment, I decided that these two small metal boxes, shown in the first photo, enclosed circuit breakers. One was labeled 12v, 20A and the other 12v, 30A. They were connected together as shown. After severing the four connections to the Voyager, I decided to connect the Odyssey by soldered connections rather than crimped ones. This must have taken a couple of hours since the old body is not as supple as it used to be and soldering underneath the dashboard is best suited to a contortionist. With all connections made and the positive cable reattached to the battery's positive terminal, the Odyssey lit up - there was no puff of smoke or flashing of sparks. :-D Since some like Bill know that I'm a dunce when it comes to electronics, it always amazes me that I can make these things work. :-D

The second photo shows the dangling Voyager still connected. The third shows the Odyssey connected and mounted.

Now all that remains is to tune up my TM's brakes and then take it out for a trial run. A brake controller performance report may follow in a few weeks.

[Bill]

Since some like Bill know that I'm a dunce when it comes to electronics, it always amazes me that I can make these things work. :-D

Don't let him kid you, folks, Larry is anything but a dunce, in any arena.

Nice installation, Larry. I'm particularly proud of your decision to solder the connections. Commercially-crimped connections using special machines are fine, but I learned long ago NEVER to trust a home-crimped job. Especially in a critical function like brakes, and especially in a location where you are quite possibly going to tangle your foot in the harness at some point in the future, I would ALWAYS solder.

Keep us posted on how you like the Odyssey, especially in contrast to the old Voyager.

Bill

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bill. I really am very ignorant about electronic matters. Perhaps my ignorance about this subject matter may be due to an emotionally traumatic event that occurred during my childhood. Around the time I was in the 7th grade, I used to hang around (bother) a neighborhood electrician while he repaired radios in his basement after work. Like many other kids of my day I built crystal radio sets (how many of you can remember "crystal sets?") But I had a burning desire to build a real radio with tubes. One day I found an article in Popular Science describing how to build a one-tube AM receiver. I purchased all of the parts at local radio supply stores but searched for an aluminum "breadboard" (chassis) on which to assemble my receiver. Luck was with me when my father gave me a couple of damaged, large diameter phonograph records. Since these were wax coated aluminum disks, I melted and sanded off the outer layers of one until I had a shiny aluminum disk. Cutting it with tin snips and bending it by hand produced my chassis. The evening arrived when I proudly took my completed one-tube radio over to Harold (my electrician friend) and showed it to him. He dutifully rechecked my work to see that I had wired all of the components according to the circuit diagram in Popular Science's article. When he could find no mistakes in my wiring, he said "Well, let's try it out." I held my breath as he plugged its power cord into a wall outlet. Poof - went the lone tube and as a wisp of smoke arose from it, all was quiet. I was heartbroken and, except for building one Heathkit, I never tinkered with radios after that day.