Slides with cables

My 15ft living room slide is a cable slide. My unit is 25 years old and no problems. I check the tension every year or so, but have not needed to adjusted the tension for 10+ years.

The only problem I ever had was a rat eating through the 12V power cable to the control unit. I had to use a jumper cable and battery to the motor to get the slide in and then trace down and replace the chewed wiring. I could have hand cranked the slide in but the battery was an easy work around.

Been a fulltimer for 7 years and 3 Montana's and Never had a problem with my cable operated slide in the bedroom, my big slides are hydraulic and never had a problem with those either but you HAVE to do maintenance on all of these KEEP THEM LUBED Folks and you should not have problems

We have a couple of friends who have had a number of problems with their cable operated slides. Both units are Keystone products, Montana and Cougar.

RV companies look for product innovations that will sell more units and cost reductions that will make more profit. I would say that moving from hydraulics to cable for slide operation definitely falls on the cost reduction side. I would be curious to know how many of the higher end models have switched to cable slides.

We have a 2012 Sundance with a closet slide and no problems at all. Most problems I've heard of have been on those with the larger slides, and or improper installation of the pulley's from the factory. I know there were some bad gearboxes that were stripping out the plastic gears earlier, but that was corrected on the recent models.

We have seen 2 lemon law enforcements about cable operated slides on a TT. That co. was out of business quick.
I would be hesitant about a cable system, as they do require pulleys, cables stretch,fray, do not always level wind.
Look at pop ups that necessarily use cables. Most last for many years with no trouble, however when there is a problem it renders the unit unuseable as there is usually no way to open it any other way
Hyd., rack & pinion, geared slides can be moved even without the motor working.

Schwintek is at the bottom of the list from everything I have heard about it. We have two LR hydraulic slides and bedroom has the cable system. No problems to date. Chris

goducks10 wrote:
Can cable slides be partially opened and closed vs Schwintek type that need to be fully opened and closed so as to not get out of sync?

Yes, no problems.

Can cable slides be partially opened and closed vs Schwintek type that need to be fully opened and closed so as to not get out of sync?

not all TT are having problems but the biggest problem we had at the dealership was the cables would eat through the grommets and into the slide and then the cable would break

Over the years, we probably have had 3 times as many units with cable slide problems than with gear or hydraulic mechanisms. That being said, we were able to jury rig repairs on several of those rigs with cable slides so they actually worked, but were never able to do anything but use the override functions to shove back in the others. One big problem I remember vividly is a customer who's cable jumped the pulley, and really did some damage to the slide structure. But I don't think I would walk away from a rig I otherwise want over the slide mechanism. I think with proper maintenance and inspection, they all work pretty well.