Ideas for a powered trailer.

[brucey]

Originally Posted by Ryland

If and when I do end up building this (I'm not finding any electric golf carts for less then $1,000 right now)

I actually just saw one the other day for 500, but it needed batteries. Sucks you're so far away!

[p38fln]

here's my suggestion -
use a 7 way trailer connecting harness from your 'towing' vehicle, and put in a standard trailer brake controller. Use the output from the brakelight switch to interrupt the power from the pushing motor, and then use the standard electric trailer brakes to do most of your braking. This would also allow you to keep the pushing motor off for maneuvers where it coming on would be unsafe by riding the brakes.

use a second TBC turned the other way to increase or decrease the power from the trailer motor - TBC's have variable output on them, are based off a pendulum, and should be very receptive to changes in acceleration. It's also helpful that nearly all of them have a manual activation switch, use that if your towing vehicle just doesn't have enough "go" to start moving.

Use the "reverse lights" pin on the 7 way connector for your trailer power signal connector - There's hardly any vehicles in north america with reverse lights on the trailer