Community Forums

cwj212 · 08-22-2016, 05:58 PM

I just returned from a trip and was towing our car. We have a Blue Ox Patriot brake unit. I got an error twice. When I checked the unit it said that the car battery was low. This happened within the first 2 hours. The car battery was not low at all. I also have a charge line to the car. We have towed to Florida and back from NY twice with no car battery issues. I had to unplug the brake and re-set it both times. After the second time it worked fine for the remaining four hours of our trip. What may be doing this?

Craig and Joan
2010 Itasca Suncrusier, 2014 CRV toad

Skilletface · 08-23-2016, 08:02 AM

I've gotten a few error messages as well and each time I didn't have something plugged in good.
One of the short comings of this system is you have no way to determine if the internal battery is fully charged.
When not in use, the unit is plugged into a 110 to 12 volt receptacle (just before a trip). Give that a try before relying totally on the vehicle battery.

cwj212 · 11-21-2016, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skilletface

I've gotten a few error messages as well and each time I didn't have something plugged in good.
One of the short comings of this system is you have no way to determine if the internal battery is fully charged.
When not in use, the unit is plugged into a 110 to 12 volt receptacle (just before a trip). Give that a try before relying totally on the vehicle battery.

I did call blue Ox about this. They told me the same thing. They said to plug it in and give it a good charge. That seems to have done the trick. Towed to Florida from NY again and didn't have this issue.

I did get a periodic error "C" message on the remote that it said the unit was off. This only lasted a second and went back to normal. Just happened a few times. I have no idea why it did that. The brake was working fine.

Craig and Joan
2010 Itasca Suncrusier, 2014 CRV toad

dennis45 · 11-21-2016, 07:33 PM

Yes, the internal battery needs to be charged occasionally by plugging it in to the 12V supply while it's turned off. It can give you a Low Car Battery alarm if there is a poor connection to the 12V supply. Just unplug and plug it back in. I usually give the plug a bit of a twist when I plug it in.
The C is a communications error meaning the dash monitor lost communication with the Patriot. Not a big deal and it only lasts for a second or two.
I'm on my second unit after the battery in the first one (after four years) would not take a charge. I returned it to Blueox and they replaced it with a much better updated version.