New Style Vertical Motor Happijac Spy Photos

BradW wrote:
Yep, could be more of the same. But. Happijac got bought by Lippert, so maybe they have turned a corner......or maybe not, we will see.

LOL.....I bet......cut a corner is most likely more accurate with LCI.

I will be one of the guinea pigs when our 1062 gets here next month with the new Happijac jacks.

Anybody remember that's how Atwood attached their motors? Since Atwood is now Dometic and since it appears Dometic isn't marketing camper jacks, I wonder if there was some previous patent that prevented Happijac from doing this sooner...

wnjj wrote:

BradW wrote:

DWeikert wrote:
That lever is on my older HJ's. It just disconnects the motor so you can use the hand crank if you have motor problems.

I did not know that was the function of the lever. I assumed it was the quick release for the jack leg.

Any way to tell from the photos if they are acme-screw or ball-screw?

On some models, the lever is for both of those purposes.

I think they only used acme on the lightest rated jacks in the past. I have to imagine it’s ball-screw.

I just checked mine and even with me almost standing on the jack foot I couldn't get the leg to drop with the lever in the free position. Maybe if all the gears are aligned just right, and we're at a specific phase of the moon, the leg would drop. Or, maybe it's the difference between the Acme-screw, what I have (HJ-4150), and the ball-screw that lets the leg drop. In either case, I leave mine in the lock position to use the electric motors all the time. I only discovered the lever uncoupled the motor when I had a motor seize and needed to get the camper off the truck.

From what I have been able to decipher from the HJ page, the acme-screw jacks don't have the leg disconnect feature, but some of the ball-screw jacks do.

4600 series had the leg that would drop down with the lever released. Used a different washer than the 4500 series jacks. I was told (while having my 4600 jacks rebuilt) that the washer for the 4600 jacks didn't holdup well and so I went with the 4500 jacks. They didn't last too long either. Presently on the 4800 jacks.

Looked at some new 2019 Lances today which had the new Happijac jacks. There were two different Happijac model numbers, 4220 for the smaller campers and 4820 for the larger campers.

Thank You! I still liked the Atwood product better. Time will tell if the new motors reliably survive more than 2 years in the weather...

joerg68 wrote:
Time will tell if the new motors reliably survive more than 2 years in the weather...

Personal experience and observation over the last 10 years tells me LCI never gets their hands on anything and then makes an improvement to somethings operation, durability, or anything else. The only improvement made is to their bottom line.

joerg68 wrote:
Thank You! I still liked the Atwood product better. Time will tell if the new motors reliably survive more than 2 years in the weather...

Yep, my Atwoods still work great after 22 years.

I would love to open up one of the new Happijac motor/drive assemblies. Someone said they were direct drive with a high torque motor. I doubt that because the wires to the head were too small to handle the current draw for that. There has to be some type of gear reduction inside that head..... I'm thinking planetary gear system.....probably with $#!+? plastic gears. :)

Bradw