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Maintains the battery charge on your towed car while it is being flat towed. Works with Demco supplemental braking systems. Includes diode and fuse.
Features:
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everybody, Ryan here at Etrailer. Today on our 2023 Chevy Equinox we're gonna be showing you how to install the Demco Towed Vehicle Battery Charge Line Kit. But before we get into that, let's just take a minute and check this out and talk about why it's a good idea to use one of these. A battery charge line is a small component but a really important one, and I feel like a lot of people kind of forget about it, don't know about it or overlook it. And what it's gonna do is essentially maintain or trickle charge your Equinox's battery whenever you're flat towing. And that's important because just about every supplemental braking system out there draws power from the battery to operate.
So, you know, you're over the road six, eight hours or even more and your battery's constantly just getting a little depleted, a little depleted. So what can happen, you get to your destination, go to unhook, you might have a dead battery, right And then you gotta deal with charging it, jumping it, going through all that process. And not to mention too, you want your braking system to have the proper voltage it needs to operate efficiently. And with these newer vehicles now, a lot of the systems are electronically controlled. We have electronically assisted brakes, a lot of times steering and all that stuff.
And so you want to keep that battery topped off, that way all of these systems can operate as they should. The way the charge line works is really simple. Your motor home is gonna have to have a seven way round style connector back here which the majority of them do, with the 12 volt auxiliary power. Like I said, most of them do, especially more of the late model ones. But the motor home sends that 12 volt power back here to use in a situation like this, and other situations.
So it has some amperage to spare, the charge line isn't gonna drain your motor home's batteries or nothing like that 'cause it has its own alternator, produces that power. But it'll send that extra amperage back, it'll go all the way through your tow bar wiring connector there, and through here. And this is where we have the charge line hooked up in the back of our six way. And that wire will run up to our battery. That power runs up, goes through a fuse to the positive battery post, and that's how it's gonna charge it essentially.
I am a fan of this kit 'cause everything's kind of pre-set up for you. It's extremely simple, it's one wire. I like the fact that it's fused, that way if you have an issue you'll pop that fuse and keep it popped, and won't keep trying to force feed power up through there. And this one uses a diode, and so what that diode will do is prevent back feeding, you know, prevent battery power from going backwards to the front of your six way connector. And that's important too because that'll really help limit the corrosion on the back of your six way, not having that constant 12 volt power down there. And that seems to be a big issue why the connectors up front here tend to fail. So this should really help eliminate that because of that diode. And overall, at the end of the day it's kind of a no-brainer to use one of these. It's kind of that missing link, but without it, it's just not completely right, at least in my opinion. I definitely recommend charge lines for pretty much every vehicle that comes through here and gets flat towed. So as far as the installation goes, not bad at all. If you can do this at the same time you're doing all your other components, it's even easier. But even if not, you know, it's one wire you put to the battery, run it down and hook it up to your six way. So, shouldn't really give you a ton of issues, but if you'd like to hang around, we'll go ahead, pull into the garage and get started on it now. To begin our installation for our charge line you're gonna be here at the front of the vehicle. We have her fascia off, that's 'cause we're doing this at the same time that we did our base plate, which is what I suggest doing. But you can do this when it's all put together it'll just be a little harder to get to. And I also suggest doing this at the same time that you're doing your diode wiring, 'cause you've already got to be in the back of the six way connector and routing wires and things like that. So if you do it all at once it'll save you some time, which is exactly what we're doing. So for our charge line though, you're gonna take one end of it and bring it over here by your six way. All right. And I'm gonna feed it through the rubber dust cap there. We're gonna strip some of the insulation back. Not like that. Giving the wires a good twist. And then if you look at the back of our six way, we're gonna be using this middle pin, or middle terminal rather. So I'm gonna take a Phillips head screwdriver, back that set screw out. Try not to pull it all the way out 'cause it's kind of a pain to get back in and easy to lose. But the bare end of that wire is gonna go into that terminal. All right. And we can tighten down the set screw. Once the wiring's all hooked up on our six way, we can take our dust cover, slide that over it. And what I usually like to do too at the very end once I verify everything's working properly, is come in here with some silicone and seal up these terminals really good to prevent corrosion, but like to wait 'til we know it's all working, 'cause if you gotta get back in here it'll be a huge mess. So we'll just temporarily put that on and secure this to our base plate here. We can get the wiring routed into our engine compartment now. So, pretty straightforward, we'll just have it looped around through here and have it running up kinda right through there where it's gonna come out in our engine compartment. Our charge line wire is gonna run up through here, and we need to go to the positive battery terminal. So I just have it kind of going around the side of our battery along through here. And if you open up your cover, that's gonna give you a place to hook up our ring terminal. Before you do that though, just double check and make sure that the fuse is not installed just yet. So in order to hook this up, 'cause the charge line has this pre-attached ring terminal on it, which is great, but the best spot to hook this up is gonna be to this positive battery post here. Issue is, the nut on there isn't designed to come completely off, at least very easily. And so what we're gonna do is modify this ring terminal a little bit 'cause it's so big. I'm going to kind of cut an opening out like that, and kind of bend it in a little bit more, make it smaller. And then cut out another section here. You'll see why just in one moment. So about like that. And that nut, that's a 10 millimeter, you're gonna loosen this up, you know, a handful of turns. We'll take our ring terminal there and actually slide it in behind the head of the nut there. So once that is in place, and come back with your 10 and tighten it down. With that all tight, and we have everything else hooked up, at that point you can come back to your fuse holder take the included fuse and put it in place. And that'll finish up our look at and our installation of the Demco Towed Vehicle Battery Charge Line Kit on our 2023 Chevrolet Equinox.
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (132 Customer Reviews)
Maintains the battery charge on your towed car while it is being flat towed. Works with Demco supplemental braking systems. Includes diode and fuse.Order arrived as promised. Peyton at Etrailer was extremely helpful and patient as I asked many questions regarding the technical aspects to satify myself that the connections would work for my application. Very good timely follow up from Peyton as well which was greatly appreciated. Would recommend Etrailer to anyone in the market for towing/trailer parts.
Installing on 2020 Jeep Trailhawk :
Pic #0557 : Roadmaster Base Plate Kit , Demco Supplemental Braking System , Diode Wiring Kit , Demco Battery Charge Wire Kit
Pic # 0548 ,0551 , 0559 Had to adjust the bracket plate to line up with the upper bolt holes
Pic #6028 finished install , mounted the operating unit to the top fuse box cover using automotive Velcro . Air cylinder , controller and LED light installed . Aside from the base plate bracket not lining up with the upper bolt holes I would give it 4 stars . My son in law is a master at solving mechanical issues .
Install was simple and straightforward. I like that you don’t have to cut and crimp ends. I think there could be a lil more wire to give you more routing options. Overall would highly recommend. Fast shipping. Everything needed was in the kit.
Easy installation. I have seven outings covering 2,653 miles without any issues with the battery in our toad (2016 Jeep Wrangler 2-door). This powers our Patriot BlueOx brake system.
Super simple installation while installing the Duo Plug in Play and wire harness plug. Highly recommend it so you can water proof the entire receptacle and button it up once and for all.
Wire is about 18” too short for 2023 Wrangler 4xe. Will not reach from the battery to the front plug. All roadmaster parts installed per instructions.
This charging cord works just as advertised. It is simple to install.
The tow package has been working very well and makes hauling my F150 a breeze.
Great instructions and worked as expect ed.
A small but important part in towing a car behind a motorhome. This works as advertised.
Exactly what I ordered and arrived sooner than expected.
I just received the charge link. When I install and test it I will give a review that may mean something. For now a 5 star for it’s simplicity.
Everything works as expected.
Easy to install and worked like a charm. We experienced the "death wobble" in our Jeep toad last year. We had the dealership install the fix, which allows the electronic steering to have power while under tow. This item prevented any problems with a dead battery upon arrival. Thanks a bunch!
Good advise, Ordered...delivered on time..the best
Looks good.
Terry
3/1/2024
Been using this for a year and it has not let me down. I did buy 2. With electronic components you never know what may happen.
Instructions were clear.
Easy hookup and seem to work as it shou ld.
Worked great
Exactly what i needed, at a great price.
I have bought several items in the past from strainer,always quality.
Works great at keeping our towed vehicle battery charged.
David
5/24/2023
Great stay in place brake system. Easy to use.
Great service and very fast delivery.
Simple to install and works great
Received what I ordered in timely manne r.
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William
8/13/2024
Seems to work with no problems. What can you really say about a wire? Installed easily and I just don’t w en ever think about it. Recommend this for anyone needing to supply a toad battery with charging from the tow vehicle.