I installed my Brakesmart recently and must say the performance is excellent. Feels like it's a factory brake controller.

I do have a couple questions though.

1. During a long tow it enters "power save mode" and sounds an "alarm" telling you that it is going into power save mode. This was quite annoying to the driver and the sleeping passengers who were awakened every 30 min. thinking the trailer had disconnected! I'm not sure what "power" it's saving since the truck is running and underway but...

Is there a way to turn this alarm off?

2. The lights on the display are a little bright for my taste, especially when you're running at night. Is there a way to turn the brightness down either by settings or something more invasive?

I thought about putting some window tint over it but thought it might look sloppy.

TIA

 

Lance K where did you get your brakesmart? Last time I tied to get onethe company had been sold to someone in NC and were on backorder. Is it a lot better than the prodigy by tekonsha?

 

Push the M button (for menu) and it should display something about change the controller settings. Press E (for enter).

Use the up and down buttons to scroll, and you will see where you can adjust the time delay for it to go into power saving mode.

The controller has no way of knowing if the truck is running (the factory harness provides power all the time), so the time to shut down is based on the last application of the brake, or the last use of any of the buttons on the controller.

Scroll down further and there is a place to turn the "beep" on or off.

It might be a good idea to set the power down delay for a long time and leave the beep on, so you won't get the annoying beep when it powers down after no activity, but you would still get a beep if it detects loss of trailer brakes or a short or other problem.

Personally, though, I just have my time delay set down and the beeper off.

Jeff

P.S. are you the Lance K. I know from The Dalles?

 

I bought my Brakesmart here...

www.drperformance.com

No I'm not the guy you know from (Dallas) think you meant to say.

I turned mine down to 30 min. but did think to turn it way up. Also I don't remember seeing an option to turn off the beep but I'll look. I would like to have it beep if the trailer disconnects, just not when going into power save mode.

 

Lance,

Just scroll down further, and you will see the Turn Beeper Off option.

Unfortunately it doesn't allow you to turn the beeper off for some messages and on for others. That would have been nice, since any error messages that come up on the screen clear the next time you hit the brakes...

I used to work with a guy named Lance K who had a Dodge and trailer, so I was curious. The city is "The Dalles", which means narrow rapids, or something like that...

Anyhow, enjoy the new Brakesmart. I really like mine.

Jeff

 

I'll have to play around with it.

Sorry about the Dallas thing, thought is was a typo.

It is a great controller though!

 

I don't like disabling the beeper but it's just as easy to lengthen the count down to power saver mode. Just enter the settings menu as described earlier and scroll down to power saver mode. Then you just lengthen the time to enter power saver mode. You can also just tap the brake and it resets the countdown timer for power saver. Also, you can dim the display by pushing the down arrow. I think the default is brightest. On mine there are four brightness settings available. One additional note, DO NOT try to make adjustments or change any of the settings while you have your foot on the brake peddle. You will not get the results/changes you are looking for!

 

I have mine set for five hours. Have to stop for fuel by then anyway. Also run my display on the dim setting most of the time. Actually this think has so many different ways of configuring it it make your head spin. Thankfully, it works fine right out of the box for almost everyone.

 

The Dalles is a small comunity on the Oregon side of the Colombia river.
Great area....
Lance, how long ago did you get the controller from that site???