Brake Buddy Breakaway Connector Polarity

Caterwhaller

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Joined
Aug 28, 2023
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5
so I have a 1/8” male plug dangling under my dash that plugs into a brake system… my brake buddy has female banana plug for that connection. how do i tell which wire is the hot or neutral if i were to just make my own plug in wire? hope i explained they correctly. Harper
 
Understand and some thoughts that may/may not be practical. With a meter, one can likey find which is which on the existing wire by testing that plug while connected to the RV. But then we likely need to have some info from the Brake Buddy folks to tell us which we want where when we connect them? As a first step if we are left to guess, it is "normal" to have the power on the less exposed part of any plug left exposed.
If you have the inner metal part less exposed than the outer, that often means the battery is the inner and the outer, far more exposed, part will be the ground! This is somewhat a guess that might get you into trouble on blowing a fuse if the guess is wrong!
I might suggest just replaing the plug on the existing cord to one that would meet the brake unit but that means KNOWING how to wire the new plug to make them match!
Reversed and plugging is almost sure to blow a fuse somewhere, so I might first want to find that fuse before guessing! Not wanting to blow a fuse that might kill some vital item like brake lights until I know I can recover from my mistakes!
 
Thinking deeper? Are you speaking of the power to operate the Brake Buddy unit, or are you speaking fo the connectionfrom it to the breakaway switch? If speaking of the breakaway switch, polarity doesn't matter as it is simply a switch to close a circuit.
 
on our brake buddy that wire just closes a circuit when the pin in the other end is pulled indicating that a "breakaway" has occurred and causes the break buddy to slam on the breaks.
 
so I have a 1/8” male plug dangling under my dash that plugs into a brake system… my brake buddy has female banana plug for that connection. how do i tell which wire is the hot or neutral if i were to just make my own plug in wire? hope i explained they correctly. Harper
That wire simply pulls an insulator from between 2 spring-loaded contacts in the 12V system, thus completing the circuit that powers the brake buddy. This then applies full pressure to the brake pedal.
 

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