A little background first:
HD Electra Glide bike, Piggy backer Trailer, Kury hitch, Hoppy wiring converter #46255

Sorry for the long post but i figure all this information is necessary.

Last week (Friday) I went to hook up my trailer to the bike for a weekend trip. I connect the trailer wire harness to the bike harness and then switch on the ignition to make sure the trailer lights are working. As soon as I do this, smoke starts rolling from the under seat area (this is where I have the hoppy converter mounted). Yep, the converter was burning...the tell tale smell of electrical burnings. I yank out the fuse from the converter to the battery wire, still smoke, maybe even more smoke. Next I quickly disconnect the batter cables and the smoke stops. I poke around a bit and luckily, nothing is damaged except the converter...which has a big hole in the end that connects to the wiring pigtail. I figured this puppy must have malfunctioned and I had just used the trailer a couple weeks ago with no issues.

I disconnect all the converter wiring and get a hoppy model 46155 from the parts store and hook this up. They didn't have the 46255 in stock and I needed the trailer Saturday. The difference between the 46255 and the 46155 is the 46255 has a seperate wire that connects to the battery and supplies the converted with current thus to eliminate bike wiring issues if the converter fails or shorts.

Well I get the new converter hooked up, connect the trailer, and all looks good. I re-double check the connections, just to make sure.
Now I am riding Saturday and I notice that my turn signal lights blink at a normal interval for a few blinks then start to blink really, fast...almost like a strobe light. This happens on both right and left signals. This escalates when I apply the brake.

So I figure I have a wire over heating somewhere that is causing the current to go wacky. I finally get home Sunday and go through the electrical connections one more time and eventually disconnect everything but still have the same results even with the converter disconnected and the trailer not connected either...just the bike lights.

Whats the deal. Has anyone seen this before...got a clue to the cause? I don't think any other electrical systems were damaged during the converter meltdown. The bike runs great otherwise and all other lights are not effected. I have verified that no bulbs are blown or fuses.

 

If you're having blinker problems with nothing connected, something on the bike may have gotten fried.

Something tells me your problem is with the trailer since it was the trailer end that burned. If it got hot enough to burn it a fuse should have blown somewhere though. You said that you used the trailer recently, but it sounds like this was the first time you wired it to this bike. Maybe the trailer wiring is non-standard?

 

I have used this trailer serveral times with the same wiring connections. Nothing has changed, so far as, the trailer, the bike, the wiring connections.

 

Don't know then unless one of the hoppy wires got crossed or connected to the wrong thing. I triple checked my wiring with a voltmeter against the wiring diagram, then spliced the hoppy unit in and it worked like a champ from the get-go. I even have the turnsignal-to-brake light converter module installed. It just seems strange that the module got hot enough to burn yet no fuses blew.

 

I just found this on another forum...sounds like my problem to a T.

http://www.mchitch.com/faq.htm#Why%2...h%20rapidly%20

 

Yep, you can't beat that delphi forum for trailering questions.

 

I had the same quickflashing problem with my 02, did it while the trailer was hooked up, I just assumed it was a bad ground wire as when the quick flashing started on the bike then my trailer didn't blink at all, was going to run a independent ground from trailer to bike to see if it fixed it next time I use it, also quick flashing problem once trailer was unhooked, I did the hold brake on turn ignitionthen hit flasher five times right then five times left then turn ignition off and worked fine, somewhere on here was a post with a bunch of different techniques to fix this problem but the 5 x 5 worked for me, i think before I use my trailer again I'm going to get one of the powered hoppy converters that connects to the battery also, right now the one I'm using doesn't connect to the battery, it just converts 5 wires into 4, worked great on my evo but no so with the newer bike.

 

On my trailer I used LED lights so the bike doesn't recognize the lights (low resistance) so no fast blink problems

 

I am pretty sure the issue is with the hoppy 46155 converter...this is the unit that just converts 5 wire to 4 wire. As stated in my initial post, I had to get this unit because the parts store did not stock the 46255 unit (the one that has the secondary power supply).
Looks like its a trip to the parts store to order the other hoppy unit.
Thanks for the responses.

 

just recieved my trailer hitch and ball adapter from http://www.n-line.com/also got a harness that plugs in where the wireing goes to rear fender and gives a pig tail (4-pin flat) for the trailer Q is do i need anything else ? <converter ?> besides the trailer (im likin the mini mate camper) thanks