Help with camper electric jacks!

Kawasakiklx wrote:
No load on jacks. I'm using a 12v test light. Ground clip to jack's ground positive point with bulb on bolt attached to camper. There is definitely 12v being sent through the frame. I can't find the wiring or jack controller. Pretty new to campers.

That is normal.. The frame is connected to the - of the battery.
Leave the test light on there and that same wire... One direction of the jack the light will light the other direction and the light will be off... You do not need to have the connection to the jack to test this.

One direction of the jacks and One wire will be + to the frame.... the other direction the other wire will be + to the frame...

Fair Oaks! My best friend lives there. I might drive it down to you...haha I'm up near Susanville.

Made a vid. Uploading it now. I'll link when it's up.

Did this while hooked to service, too. Newer battery and all.

No load on jacks. I'm using a 12v test light. Ground clip to jack's ground positive point with bulb on bolt attached to camper. There is definitely 12v being sent through the frame. I can't find the wiring or jack controller. Pretty new to campers.

When you are making the jacks go up and down are you raising the camper or just making the jacks move under no load. A low/weak battery will cause the jacks to cut out intermittently when raising the camper... The rears have less weight and might not have a problem.

jim

Kawasakiklx wrote:
I need some pretty urgent help with my camper. I went to put down the front set of electric Atwood jacks on my camper this afternoon, and they worked intermittently. They didn't work at all at first, but then they started working, but were shorting on the bracket where they bolt to the camper.

Now, while putting a test light on the ground wire, when the jacks don't work, I have 12v at the camper frame. It is either working fine, sparking where bolts go into mount, or fully shorted to frame.

Please help!! What could cause this intermittent short?

When you say that there are sparks where the bolts mount jack to the frame that makes no sense to me... The bolts/brackets are tight so there should be no sparking. Are the bolts loose?

When you say you have 12vdc to the camper frame were are you placing the other lead of the test light? The camper frame will always be the negative of the battery!
So any 12vdc source will make the test light light... The frame is not the + of the battery!

If there was a full short to the frame it should blow a fuse or trip a thermal breaker if your camper has one installed on the + lead going to the jack controller.

Like Bootycall said, the only way for the motors to short would require an internal short of the motor...

The body of the motors are completely isolated from the metal outside casing. There should be no internal connection going to the case of the motor.


Each motor has it's own set of wires coming from the controller. When operating they will be either +/- or -/+ polarity to make the motor turn CCW or CW.... Those wires have not connection to the frame of the camper..... They come direct from the controller electronics.

If you are using a meter or test light, one lead on the frame of the jack and the other on one of the leads to the motor and make the motor run you will either see no voltage of 12 vcd/test light lit or not... Depends on the direction you are trying to make the motor turn.

Jim

When I unplug the far jack the problem is still there. When using the jack with the two switches, the problem happens going both up and down, on both switches/jacks. If it wasn't intermittent, it would probably be easy to find.

Boatycall wrote:
What that means is one of the two wires has lost it's connection to the jack, and your jacks are trying to get a ground via the frame, which they are not meant to because to go up they use one wire for hot, but to go down, they reverse polarity on the wires and the other wire then becomes hot.

So -- you have one of the two wires disconnected. Jacks CANNOT be frame-grounded electrically. In one direction, they're trying to get a ground via the frame and work.... but in the other direction, they are now dead-shorting to the frame and causing sparks.

Exactly correct.. They are DC motors and require swapping the + and- to go up and down. No external connections of the motors.

Jim

I thought this through a little more.... You could also possibly have a wire come loose inside one of the jacks.

Disconnect both jacks, one at a time, to isolate which corner is your problem child. Then, take a 12v car battery, or the TC battery out, physically set it on the ground and run jumper cables to the jack in question.

Hook it up hot to ground one way, then reverse the hot and ground to run the jack the other way.

If by doing this, the jack works fine, you problem lies in the wires between the controller and the jack. If the jack operates intermittently off a separate battery, you have bad wiring inside the jack itself.