briggs and stratton hour meter not working?

[The motor guy]

This is the second hour meter they sent me. The first one I got 40 minutes of run time on it after I got the red wire wrapped tight enough for it to read the hours correctly, then the screen went blank. Now this one the hour meter goes blank and then it starts blinking randomly 8888.88 hours and then the screen stays blank after I shut off the blower. I press the little white maintenance reset button and it comes back on and goes 1111.1, 2222.2, 3333.3 all the way up to 9 and then it goes back to 00.00 on the screen. I don't get it. I put a new 18 gauge connector on the ground side so I could put it around a bolt on the engine. It's connected around the same bolt as the ground for the kill switch, not sure if that matters.

What's wrong with this thing?

 

[The motor guy]

I've cut the stock ground connector off before and it worked fine, never had any problems.

 

[The motor guy]

What are the chances that two of them are messed up?

 

[The motor guy]

Well I got it working, I just unhooked the ground wire and it works now and logs time accurately. Maybe the two strokes don't need the ground wire hooked up.