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LED indicator on breakaway switch lets you know the battery powered, emergency breakaway is engaged. If the plunger is removed the LED light is illuminated, indicating that there is power passing through the switch. 7" Long wires.
Features:
Specs:
A crucial component to a breakaway system, a breakaway switch is what activates the trailer brakes should your trailer become disconnected from the tow vehicle.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be checking out and showing you how to hook up the Hopkins LED breakaway switch. Having a functioning breakaway switch is a critical component for your trailer's breaking system. Not only, you know, legally speaking, but for your safety too. So the whole point of a breakaway switch is if you we're in an unlikely disconnect, what would happen is you'd hook one end of your cable up to your vehicle that you're using to tow, and if the trailer came separated, a pin would pull out, and allow power to go through the breakaway switch to your trailer's brakes, applying the brakes, slowing everything down and getting it back under control. So it's really important that this is working, because during that stressful situation, you want to be able to rely on your trailer to do its job.
And this is a good example today of, kind of a breakaway switch that's seen better days. You know, the wires are exposed here where they're going into the switch. the tether's all chewed up, and it seems to be either not working at all, or very intermittently. So the way a breakaway switch works, I have a test light here, you'll always have power on one side of it, all right So I'm getting power there, and you shouldn't have power on the other side until the switch is pulled. So let's say if the switch is pulled, we don't have power there.
So literally if in that, you know, with this not functioning correctly, when this is pulled, then you need the brakes more than ever to slow you down. The breakaway switch isn't gonna let that power go through being that it's defective. So you know, having a simple replacement like this is definitely a great solution to get you back legal and safe again. So I went ahead and got this hooked up, which we will show you how to do in just a minute. I just wanted to have it, kind of, set up so we could see what's going on.
So one of the things that really separates this one from some of the others, there's a couple things, really. Main one being that it has that LED built into it, which is really cool. So when you go to test this, you know, before you tow your trailer, whatever, if you pull that out, and everything's going the way it should, you'll have that red light illuminate saying that it's in- it's, everything's engaged. So pretty cool there. Just a real quick way to make sure you're getting power, and this is working properly, and everything else.
I'm also a fan of the size of it too, so compared to a lot of the other ones, it's pretty small, and because of that, you know, it won't take up a lot of space on your trailer, and allow you to mount this in a lot of different positions or configurations. It's breakaway switch's gonna work with just about every trailer that has brakes out there. You know, the breakaway systems are all pretty much hooked up and wired exactly the same. So great replacement or even a slight upgrade because of that LED, and it is gonna come with a cable too. This is 48 inches, so pretty standard, you know, it's long enough if you need to mount your switch a little further back or whatever, you're probably gonna have the cable length that you need to be able to hook it up to the hitch on your truck. A lot of times when people get to replacing something like this, they're kind of just going over through the whole trailer, and, kind of, freshening everything up. And that's exactly what we did here today. We got a new seven-way plug, new junction box, you know, putting the new breakaway on, even a new replacement battery for our breakaway box, brakes, all that type of stuff. So if that's what you're doing, we carry all this stuff here at etrailer, and can hopefully make things a little bit easier on ya. But other than that, at the end of the day, pretty simple component, yet a critical one, you know, one that you want to work, and one that you need to be able to rely on. So I really like this one with that LED light, kinda adds a little bit to it there. Makes it easy to check. And because of the size, you know, you can mount this thing up just about anywhere you'd like. As far as the installation goes, pretty easy. You mount it up and you got a few wires to hook up. So if you'd like to hang around, we'll go ahead and get started on it now. To begin your install, first thing that I like to do is, kind of, prep the wires coming off. So we'll have a white wire, which will be ground. So I crimped on a ring terminal to it. The black wire, that's gonna be our battery power. So I crimped on a butt connector to it, and the blue wire is gonna go, if the pin we're to be pulled, you know, that's gonna send power back to our brakes. So we'll do this one, and butt connectors and ring terminals are all gonna get hooked up the same way. You can get all that stuff here at etrailer if you need it. You strip the wire back, give it a good twist and then place the butt connector over the end of it, and crimp it down. So now with that, kind of, prepped, we can look at our old breakaway switch, all right, which is right here. And I have a test light, and what we're looking for is for the wire that has constant power. So we check 'em, this is the one that's gonna have constant power. So we'll do this one at a time, because the constant power one, we're gonna want to hook that up to the black wire on our new breakaway switch. So I'm gonna cut this back, I cut a little bit off there. Looks like the wire was a little chewed up but so, actual wire looks good. We'll give that a twist, we'll hook that up to the black wire on our breakaway switch. I'm gonna get that in there, and crimp down. And since I'm using heat shrink style butt connectors, come back with my heat source, and seal up the ends. (heat gun whirs) The other existing wire to our old breakaway switch. Cut that off, strip it back, and this will get hooked up the same exact way that we just did the other one. (heat gun whirs) As far as the ground goes, that'll just have to go to the chassis, you know, the trailer frame. So to prevent from having to drill another hole where I'm gonna actually secure our breakaway switch, I'm just gonna utilize that. That'll work just fine. Just line it up, get our self tapper, and secure this all down. (drill revs) With it all hooked up, it is a good idea to to test everything out. So the sweet thing about this one is, very easy to do that, since it has that light built into it. So pins in, we're all good. If you pull it, we should see that LED illuminate, and we should get power. Which we do, so, 'cause of that being pulled, the power's going through, and we're in good shape. And that'll finish up our look at, and our installation of the Hopkins LED breakaway switch.
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (20 Customer Reviews)
LED indicator on breakaway switch lets you know the battery powered, emergency breakaway is engaged. If the plunger is removed the LED light is illuminated, indicating that there is power passing through the switch. 7" Long wires.Switch mounded up ok. I fabricated a shield to cover the switch so that it would not be jerked around and possibly fail due to wiggling around.
Randy F.
7/8/2018
Works great, only used to test but is excellent device with my fabricated bracket to prevent movement
Searched retail stores for this break away switch with LED test light and no luck. E trailer had the exact part delivered to my home in several days and was exactly what I expected.
Replaced a worn out breakaway switch on my '03 Coleman Yuma. Works great.
Order delivery was upgraded, at no cost to me, and delivered in just over 24 hrs. Etrailer was in contact by email from order confirmation to shipping time. I would recommend them to everyone.
This switch was a great replacement for my broken one. Nice way to upgrade as well.
Exact OEM switch replacement for most of our trailers.
I've dealt with Emily several times and she was always
spot on and she is the best !!!
Everything else about Etrailer is terrific !!!
Thank You !!!!
Looks like a good replacement. everything was shipped fast
Not quite like the picture description, but close. There was not a separate activation pin with a ring, only the pin attached to the cable.
Sierra K.
10/28/2021
Customer Service will reach out to you.
have it as a spare, not installed yet.
Good price, purchased for spares
Hopkins S.
5/31/2017
Thanks Brad for the great review and rating!! Hopkins appreciates your business.
great web site great got part in like 2 days
Good quality
great switch
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Hopkins S.
7/12/2017
Thank Randy F. for another great review and rating!! Hopkins appreciates your business.