John Canfield
Site Team
Setup: SMI Silent Partner (wireless brake operation coach-toad), Jeep's tail lights via a cable coach-toad.
We just returned from about a month on the road and we were washing the coach and the toad. I like to open the Jeep's hood, spray a degreaser, and wash it down. While looking around under the hood, I noticed a severed wire - the wire was one I added three years ago when I set the Jeep up for towing.
Recently I noticed our towing tail lights weren't working (brake/turn are okay) and I thought ah-ha! Found my problem! (How the wire got severed is a total mystery.) I tugged on the wire and discovered it went to the breakaway switch and not the lights connector!
The impact of this wire being cut was I had a totally non-functional breakaway switch. SMI's engineers did not design this system to not work if there was an integrity issue with the breakaway switch which surprised me. I would have designed it to alarm if there was an issue with the breakaway switch wiring.
Shame on me for not testing the breakaway switch periodically. Shame on SMI for not having some kind of integrity check.
We just returned from about a month on the road and we were washing the coach and the toad. I like to open the Jeep's hood, spray a degreaser, and wash it down. While looking around under the hood, I noticed a severed wire - the wire was one I added three years ago when I set the Jeep up for towing.
Recently I noticed our towing tail lights weren't working (brake/turn are okay) and I thought ah-ha! Found my problem! (How the wire got severed is a total mystery.) I tugged on the wire and discovered it went to the breakaway switch and not the lights connector!
The impact of this wire being cut was I had a totally non-functional breakaway switch. SMI's engineers did not design this system to not work if there was an integrity issue with the breakaway switch which surprised me. I would have designed it to alarm if there was an issue with the breakaway switch wiring.
Shame on me for not testing the breakaway switch periodically. Shame on SMI for not having some kind of integrity check.
