Electric Slide Motor Problem

[skippratt]

Our electric slide motor on the big slide of our 2011 Jayco Pinnacle was having problems pushing out and bringing in the slide.  We had the motor replaced at a cost of +$500.

The new slide motor is worse than the old slide motor and won't bring in the slide!  It was not the same model number but vendor said it was the designated replacement.  Both motors were 1/10 hp and 12 rpm.  This seems small to me.  Does anyone have any recommendations what might be causing the slide problems.  Would a more powerful motor be a better solution?  All comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

[Lance A Lott]

The one on my parents MH turned out to be the relay not the motor. Good luck.

[Kirk W]

Have you lubricated the mechanical parts of the slide mechinism recently? It may be that more power would work for a while, but the problem could be poor slide movement. 

[oldjohnt]

7 hours ago, skippratt said:

Would a more powerful motor be a better solution?

My fear of using a "more powerful motor" is the increased chances of damaging a gear or other drive mechanisms. The HP provided should do the job ifffffffffff ?? all the mechanicals are in order. My first mechanical suspects would be timing, mis alignment, any gear box issues, crud/corrosion or lack of lubrication (I use dry type slide lube). Electrical suspects (if no movement at all) would be wiring, fuses, limit and location switches, series switch devices such as parking brake etc. Its important those motors are receiving full voltage as provided by your house battery bank, if its low performance suffers. There are different types of slide mechanisms, I've seen a few You Tube videos, you may want to search there for help, pictures and videos are worth a thousand words...……... 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rv+slide+not+working

It may be a bit Nerdy, but when I run mine and n out the little woman pushes the button and I sort of "help" by grabbing the top and providing a bit of assistance in or out. Sure I have and use them but as all the other bells n whistles and considering how cheap and light some RV's are manufactured, the more "stuff" you have the greater the chances of problems grrrrrrrrrrrrrr HIGH MAINTENANCE

John T

[Lou Schneider]

Are you leaving the front door open when extending or retracting the slide?  Moving the slide displaces a large amount of air and unless there's a large opening to the outside you're creating an air spring inside the RV and greatly increasing the load on the motor.

This was graphically demonstrated to me several years ago at an RV show when Tahoe introduced a sofa sized manual slideout.  You supplied the motive power by grabbing a handle on the outside of the slide and pushed or pulled it into place.

With the front door open the slide moved easily on a pair of ball bearing drawer rails.  But if the RV was sealed up, it was impossible to move the slide more than a couple of inches in either direction without encountering more resistance than you could overcome.

As far as the motor goes, Horsepower is Torque x RPM so the reduction gearbox increases the torque at the driving gear just like selecting a low gear in your car.

At 12 RPM a 1/10 horsepower motor produces 44 ft-lbs of torque.  That should be sufficient to move a large slide unless something else is interfering with the movement.

Edited June 22, 2019 by Lou Schneider

[Barbaraok]

Lou is correct - the effect of not having somewhere for that air to go can REALLY slow things down.   Just opening an overhead vent will give all that air room to move out of the rig when bringing in a slide and will allow air to easily move in when putting out a slide.  

[RV_]

One thing I encountered with  my first rig, a HitchHiker was the slide jammed one day, and nothing helped bring it in. I had forgotten to bring it in before hooking up and caught it on  my final walk around to check that and the antenna, and the hitch lock. I freaked initially because I was not going down the road like that! But it was not even close to level hitched with the truck on a slight hill. I leveled the trailer and it pulled in fine and never gave me another problem. I was glad it was that simple. Perhaps your rig is way out of level and the slide is going in slightly at an angle? Just a WAG from experience.

Edited June 23, 2019 by RV_

[Barbaraok]

Yes, every manufacturer will have a procedure for putting out and pulling in slides that needs to be followed.

[SCClockDr]

An issue we had on both our Titanium's  was excessive wire run between the switch & motor. 70 + feet counting both ways. I built a relay system close to the motor & slide performance improved dramatically. About 8 feet both ways.

You may want to audit the wire connections for solid strong mechanical contact.

[lenp]

Are your batteries in good shape?  Weak batteries will cause higher current draw and overheat the motor.

Lenp

[WeBeFulltimers]

I'm surprised that no one has asked if the slide out in question is a Schwintek or is it a cable operated. +$500 to replace the motor seems EXCESSIVE to me.