Electric Awning

Wiring does make sense as it seems current related..

Thanks for all the comments.

I have the CareLess Eclipse awning.

Awning retracting: Battery 12.6V, input to awing switches 10.8V, motor voltage 9.1V (TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY INADEQUATE), 16ga wire for the relay and additional 12ga and 14ga wire for both Monaco and CareLess. Increasing the battery voltage to say 13.4V for float charging helps but still inadequate.

Using some temporary heavy wiring to the switches (a battery or charger would do) the awning worked much better. I then installed 8ga positive and minus wires to the switch input and the voltage was 11.3V to the motor, a 2.2V increase to the motor.

The CareLess relay has long 16 ga wires that could be cut to 1" and spliced or just buy an equivalent relay with terminals to further increase the voltage. It's not rocket science as the relay just reverses the polarity to the awning. ie DC motor run in the opposite direction when the polarity is reversed.

In a nutshell the wiring is inadequate for the job. It appeared possible (but difficult) in my rig to replace the wiring from the switch to the outside wall and on to the CareLess motor.

But IMHO the CareLess Eclipse awning is a marginal design at best as it tends to blow up and down with a small wind. I also had the pot metal end cap strip on an Interstate as it started to unwind. Ropes solved that problem until I could repair it.

DC&MC I think have the correct answer. It the awning comes in properly when a battery is hooked directly to the motor, there is an electrical problem with the wiring somewhere. I had same problem. I was told it could be that the wire size was too small. The awning manufacturer rep told me Newmar put in large enough wire so look for the problem in a connection or a splice. Found a bad splice in a box behind passenger seat where awning, patio light, and a 12 volt outlet were wired. A new splice and problem solved. Unfortunately it was solved after Newmar sold me a new awning motor and controller that was not needed and did not solve the problem. The problem was intermittent and only occurred when the sun shined on and heated up the exterior of the wall where the electrical box was located. Look for faulty wiring or a wire size is too small.

what style awning do you have, manufacture?

I forget which one does it but some only put one motor in on one side. The motor has to work harder to roll up that whole awning and wears out to fast.
Our first fifth wheel was like that.
With all that length of the awning and such a little more trying to go ours would stop along the way as well. We would give it a few and try again and it would close.
If we were on just battery power... forget it... would creep so slow took forever to close.

Ours was the same. Last fall before extended warranty ran out they replaced a broke spring, new struts, and a new motor. Seemed to be OK although still a little slower than before. Didn't run the awning much and a couple months later we were back where we were before with it stopping halfway up and waiting awhile. The RV guy said it must be in our wiring. He used a ladder to hook a battery to the motor up on the awning arm and it seemed to work fine. We were heading north right away so we haven't had time yet to get this looked into further.

Does the motor stop and then after 30 seconds you try again and it comes in?...If so, sounds like a self reset circuit breaker temporarily tripping..I had that on my HR when I had it with one of the slides, there was a 20 amp in there and specs called for a 30 amp self reset..went to napa, got one, and that was solved. You don't state what coach or awning you have, so check and see if awning motor has one of those in the fuse panel...or it could be a part of the motor itself and in that case, you would need a new motor to replace it.