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All 4 slides inop


remoandiris

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On the curb side battery, there are the 2 very heavy gauge wires off the neg and the pos.  There is another smaller gauge coming off the positive, too.  That smaller gauge goes into the wall and disappears. 

On the road side battery, the curb side battery pos and neg come in, then very heavy gauge for each go out.  There are 2 additional, smaller gauge wires coming off the positive post.  One of those wires has a 30 amp fuse connected to it further down the line.  I should have checked to see if that is the Level-Up wire, but I didn't think of it.

I pulled the 30 amp fuse and re-inserted it.  It was not blown.  No change to the inop slides. 

Looking forward to the repair guy arriving in the morning.

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In my Travel Supreme the fuses range from 7 to 30 amps.  If the Slide controller is an Intellitec, it can be bypassed using a landing gear switch. 

Mine has 1 set of fuses in the main control panel topside and a second set down below in the forward storage bays.

There is also a silver re settable fuse with a black dot  which is the reset button. 

It may be a place to look

This doesn't account for all the slides not working.

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RV repair guy arrived.  He went thru a lot of the connections, testing here and there.  He said there is power on both sides of the 12v fusebox.  There should be power on one side only with the fuse removed.  That points to fuse panel issue or a wiring issue somewhere behind the wall. 

He tested the switches.  There is power on 3 of the 4 legs.  He said there should be power on only 1 leg until the button is pushed.

He's going to do research with Lippert and see if they have encountered something like this before, as well as get their troubleshooting steps.  In the mean time, I'll be taking down the basement wall.  He doesn't think it is the converter (not the inverter), but it might be.  It is right up against the back of the fusebox behind the wall.  Maybe I'll get lucky and see some dorked up wire as soon as I remove the wall.

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If it turns out to be the fuse board, it is a $20 part with a 2-year warranty...that is 3 years old, so 1 year out of warranty.

I'm just hoping the over voltage condition did not damage anything...like the slide controllers.

The fuse board has 15 slots.  11 are being used.  Only 4 were working properly.  Meaning only 4 were not showing power across the fuse.  Those 4 showed an LED light when the fuse was pulled.  The other 7 did not.

This is the board.

https://www.rvautoparts.com/893050N-PCB-WFCO-Arterra-Fuse-Block-12-Volt-DC_p_24315.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrtq37vbL2QIVUD2BCh1OIgiJEAQYBCABEgJ5BPD_BwE

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Nothing definitive.  RV guy is coming again tomorrow.  He spoke with a Lippert rep.  Lippert rep said the fuse board is probably NOT the problem.  Said it is designed to not illuminate the LED until there is a load on the circuit despite not having a working fuse.  I went out last night and tested a couple circuits...sure enough, when I pulled the circuit's fuse and flipped the switch, the light came on.  

Tomorrow the RV guy and I will talk thru the problem when he gets here.  He thinks there might be a loose wire between the slide switches and the slides.  To me, that doesn't answer why there is power on both both sides of the fuse board when no fuse is installed.  And, unless all 4 slides connect after the switches, which I highly doubt, there is next to no chance 4 wires are shorting behind the wall.  

So, I am back to thinking the problem is between the batteries and the switch panel, possibly the converter even though the RV guy says the converter is good. 

My next option is to pay this guy for his efforts to date and take the coach to my local RV dealer.  Am planning to leave on a 6-month trip at the end of March, but with only 3 weeks to go, the timeline is getting dorked up, so the trip may be delayed/cut short if this isn't resolved soon. 

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Just looked through this today. Maybe I missed it, but the 30amp inline to the schwintek/lippert velocity contoller (possibly a dual motor syncronous contoller) has been confirmed and checked? The inside switch control panel has been pulled and checked for any inline switch fuses feeding the switch string (4 switches I believe you said?)? Might be tucked back into the cavity. If one isn't readily visible then you can at least check to see if the string is actually getting power before proceeding any further.

It can be delved into deeper, but your core 12v system appears to be functioning as it should which gives the "tell" that your issue is within the lippert system. The 30amp you mentioned earlier coming off the battery "may" have been to your slide controller. It can sometimes be difficult to tell if it's blown or not... even doing a continuity test. That would be an area I would revisit. Trace it to determine exactly what it's feeding, confirm the connections and test the line transmission under load. 

With the entire system down the issue has to be fairly far "up river".

I don't want to be "too" mean... but If what you understood from your tech guy is correct... and he said what you say he said... then I would take away his toys (multimeter) and send him on his way. ;)

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1 hour ago, Yarome said:

Just looked through this today. Maybe I missed it, but the 30amp inline to the schwintek/lippert velocity contoller (possibly a dual motor syncronous contoller) has been confirmed and checked? The inside switch control panel has been pulled and checked for any inline switch fuses feeding the switch string (4 switches I believe you said?)? Might be tucked back into the cavity. If one isn't readily visible then you can at least check to see if the string is actually getting power before proceeding any further.

Thanks much for the reply.  I know where the 2 Schwintek controllers are.  No idea where the "thru the frame" slide controllers are, or even if those motors have controllers.  I do not recall seeing any inline fuses to the Schwinteks.

Quote

It can be delved into deeper, but your core 12v system appears to be functioning as it should which gives the "tell" that your issue is within the lippert system. The 30amp you mentioned earlier coming off the battery "may" have been to your slide controller. It can sometimes be difficult to tell if it's blown or not... even doing a continuity test. That would be an area I would revisit. Trace it to determine exactly what it's feeding, confirm the connections and test the line transmission under load. 

K.  I think first we'll pull that fuse and see what is no longer getting power.  It may or may not have anything to do with the slides.  It might be the motorcycle ramp, but I can't open the slide to check it. 

Quote

With the entire system down the issue has to be fairly far "up river".

When you say "up river", do you mean between the switches and the motors?  

Quote

I don't want to be "too" mean... but If what you understood from your tech guy is correct... and he said what you say he said... then I would take away his toys (multimeter) and send him on his way. ;)

LOL!!  He told me a few days ago when he was troubleshooting that he saw a controller behind the wall between the switches and the slide motors.  He couldn't reach it and didn't want to yank on wires when he wasn't sure if the problem was there.

The most perplexing thing for me, and the tech, is 4 slide motors of 2 different types not working is just whacked.  Hopefully he or I (he's a really tall dude to crawl around in a confined space, but I'm not much smaller) can get behind the basement wall and see something.  I was a few days ago but didn't see anything I consider really odd, but I'm not an RV tech.

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On 2/26/2018 at 9:59 PM, noteven said:

Absolutely uneducated guess:

a broken ground will be discovered 

PRETTY DAMN CLOSE!!!!!

All 4 slide switches join into ONE ground wire.  That ONE ground wire joins with FOUR other ground wires in a big-ass wire nut.  The slide ground wiggled out of the nut and lost connectivity.  

The ground wire is back in the nut and all FIVE ground wires are wrapped up with electrical tape.  Hopefully they will not come apart again, but if they do, at least I know where the connection is...behind the wall above the utility hook up panel.

Aggravating to say the least, but it's fixed and the RV repair guy didn't kill me on charges.

At least it is FIXED, FIXED, FIXED!!

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28 minutes ago, remoandiris said:

PRETTY DAMN CLOSE!!!!!

All 4 slide switches join into ONE ground wire.  That ONE ground wire joins with FOUR other ground wires in a big-ass wire nut.  The slide ground wiggled out of the nut and lost connectivity.  

The ground wire is back in the nut and all FIVE ground wires are wrapped up with electrical tape.  Hopefully they will not come apart again, but if they do, at least I know where the connection is...behind the wall above the utility hook up panel.

Aggravating to say the least, but it's fixed and the RV repair guy didn't kill me on charges.

At least it is FIXED, FIXED, FIXED!!

Maybe solder the connection ? Never worry about it again .

Goes around , comes around .

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  • I am not a fan of soldered connections in this kind of application.  Wire nuts are also not good.  But a properly installed crimp connection is often the best.  But it must be properly crimped.  Have seen some not properly crimped come apart and some soldered ones too.  That vibration that our rolling earthquakes we call RVs is brutal on things like that.  Sounds like some very good troubleshooting.  You have some skills and a successful approach!!

Marcel

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2 hours ago, rpsinc said:
  •   Sounds like some very good troubleshooting.  You have some skills and a successful approach!!

Not me, but I certainly learned a lot.  The RV repair guy found it, pretty much by dumb luck.  Once his hopes of the 12v fuse board being the problem were dashed by the board manufacturer's tech rep, the RV repair guy thought all the slide circuits went into a single controller before going out to the slides' individual controllers.  He saw one controller behind the wall, but alas, it was a controller just for the rear curb side slide.  

So he decided to check out the 2 Schwintek controllers.  He climbed inside the basement, read the text on the controllers, then started following the wires for one of the controllers.  Lo and behold, a loose wire!!  Tied it back in and sent me inside to mash a button...and the slides worked.  So really, just dumb luck.

How anyone finds a loose or broken ground, when so many different grounds are used and so many different colors, it amazes me.  There is a whole lot of spaghetti behind those walls.  

KRAZY!!

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Grounding blocks are common on AC load centers.  They work well but not sure how they would work in the vibration world of RVs.

1 hour ago, remoandiris said:

pretty much by dumb luck

I am not sure that the end result wasnt luck, but the process of finding it is what often will determine the quality of the person doing the work. Even if it was some other vehicle, or a house, or shop, or business, if someone has the discipline to take a pragmatic approach to the troubleshooting, it often will be a positive result.  

Marcel

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