New Prodigy problem

[MarkCM]

Installed a new Prodigy this weekend. Awesome results over an old Tekonsha controller on 36' aluminum gooseneck enclosed car hauler.

HOWEVER...when on the freeway over 50 or so the display goes to S.H., which means something about a short in idle mode or something about a test circuit (sorry, I don't have the troubleshhoting guide in front of me). Once speed drops, things return to normal and stay normal until speed is increased then error code and NO BRAKES.

Thoughts?

Mark

[Teebird]

SH indicates a short to ground on the blue wire, or the brake wire. Check your brake wiring, especially the wiring that goes through the axle. You may want to indicate what year truck you have.

[Richman]

I also found with ours, if you have a factor Ford plug on the tail of your truck, the tailer plug will fit loose and not have a good connection. Try bending the tabs on the trailer plug so that it will fit tighter, it clearded up a big headache with ours.

[ryandye]

The Prodigy is VERY sensitive to grounding issues. My bro-in-law has an 05 Dodge 1500 that we installed a prodigy in a few months ago. At the same time we installed a new stereo w/ sat radio and ipod control. We ran a new power and ground line for the sat and ipod boxes. A week later we went camping in Cedar City UT. On the way home he got the same SH error code and had no trailer brakes. We spend 3 hours trying to diagnose the issue. We thought at first it was a loose connection to the trailer. Finally we discovered the ground and power lines we had run had gotten pinched when the dash was reassembled and were shorting out momentarily. Somehow the Prodigy was sensitive to that short.

[Bob C.]

Unlike my Ford controller, the prodigy does not seem prone to cry wolf.
I work for an RV dealer & have had several customers come in with this complaint. All have had the same brand of trailer.
The first one took lots of diagnostic time. I finally found 1 to 3 areas of skinned insulation in the wire for the brakes that is inside the axle. Sometimes it is just in one axle, but the one I fixed today had bad spots in the wiring in both axles. Apparently when the axle mfg. pulls the wire in they are not very careful & skin the insulation.
Now when someone comes in with this complaint, I just replace the wiring.

[MarkCM]

The answer.

I have a drop in bedliner. Hey I didn't know better at the time. Here in Texas where it is hot as hell the bed liner gets very flexible. The wind in the bed pulls the bed liner up chafing the wires against the metal of the bed only when at speed. When in town and speed s are low the liner stays in place and no short.

Thanks for the replies.

[olddieseldude]

Interesting!

Good find.