Trailer Breakaway Kit with Charger for Trailers with Electric Brakes

Question:

We moved a trailer today without replacing the plug for the emergency brake system 1 mile down the road battery had enough charge to engage brakes and smoke started to come from the battery box hey small part inside of the box appears to have burnt I’m not sure what that is any ideas what might have happened

asked by: Craig

Helpful Expert Reply:

The breakaway kit pin when removed sends 12V power directly to your trailer brakes. Because you didn't have the pin in, the breakaway kit did exactly what it was designed to do for the trailer brakes.

The battery box having damage sounds like the circuit board overheated and will need replaced. This definitely isn't normal operation and I don't know the cause of that. I recommend replacing the entire unit with the Hopkins Engager Push-To-Test Trailer Breakaway Kit w/ Built-In Charger - Side Load # 20099 or top load # 20400 since we can't pin point the actual issue and don't want to repeat it.

expert reply by: Jason S