Electric Awing won't close

Yeah, the manual ones are much less trouble in my experience. And more robust too. Ours power awning flops around in the mildest of breezes.

Veebyes wrote:
Ha! mine sometimes closes all by itself in the middle of the calmest of nights.

Wish I still had a manual one.

YES!!!!!! Better yet, an electric one that's as robust as a manual!

Lyle

laknox wrote:

Texas Bohunk wrote:
Texas Jayco: Thanks I'll put the switch and check it. Maybe even buy a new marine grade switch to replace it.

That's what I was thinking. Why mess around with the old, defective, switch several times a year, when replacing it with a better one would likely solve the problem? :h

Lyle

It wasn't defective, just needed to be cleaned and literally took 30 seconds to do it. Probably should have replaced it, but no biggie to clean it a COUPLE times a year.

Mark

Any switching device, be it a relay or switch, is prone to dirtying up the contacts over time when switching DC current.

Veebyes wrote:
Ha! mine sometimes closes all by itself in the middle of the calmest of nights.

Wish I still had a manual one.

X2. I always had manual awnings. I didn't mind needing to crank it out manually and securing it to stakes driven in the ground and adding deflappers. The most annoying thing about any awning is the noise it could make on a breezy evening when sleeping. There were times when the wind was excessive and necessitated my getting out of bed and rolling the awning up.

Mine did the same thing and of course I assumed it was either the switch or the motor itself. I checked the switch with a meter to find it was working properly then I bought a matching plug from an local auto parts store and hooked the motor directly to a 12v battery and found the motor was working fine, after some head-scratching my buddy suggested we should check the wiring from the switch to the motor and there was the problem. When the dealer installed the awning (I won't mention his name and I wouldn't buy a doghouse from this goof!) their installation was "shoe-maker quality" at best, they ran the power wire from the forward base of the awning arm using two "crimp connectors" without either taping or heat-shrinking the connection so I re-did it properly but that shoddy workmanship still wasn't the issue, I followed the chord up the awning arm under the plastic cover to where there the hinged part was and there I saw that the chord had shorted out after being bent over a period of time and it would make a contact intermittently so I went to my local Handy Andy and bought a better quality chord and where the extreme bend was I added three layers of heat-shrink tubing to reduce abrasion and it's been good ever since, I hope this helps!

Red Green: Nothing bugs a handyman more than a stripper that works too slow.