Inoperative Bedroom Slide - 2008 291RLS

[HammerToe]

I was wondering if anyone might be able to offer me some advice or information to help me resolve two electrical problems - one major and one minor - I recently encountered with my 5th wheel – a 2008 Cougar Model 291RLS (two ‘slides’ – a main ‘living room’ slide and a second ‘bedroom’ slide).

(Major) Problem Summary:

Earlier this week, I was in the final stages of leaving home for three weeks of vacation camping – all hooked up to my TV, landing gear retracted, shore power disconnected and stored, etc. All that was left to do was retract the slides, lock up/retract the stairs, throw the wheel chocks into storage and go.

I started by pressing the rocker switch to first retract the bedroom slide and it started to come in. I waited, as usual, to hear the ‘normal, ratcheting clicks’ from the mechanism’s clutch, typically signifying that the slide was fully closed but, for the first time ever, they did not occur. Rather, the motor just ‘shut off/stopped’.

Uh, oh!

Did not like the sound (more precisely, the absence of the ‘sound) of that.

Got out and checked – the bedroom slide was fully retracted BUT…
Went back into the trailer and thought I’d try to reopen the slide and close it again but, as I feared, ‘NOTHING’. No response from the actuator mechanism, ‘one way or the other’.

CRAP! Fear of maybe having to cancel 3 planned weeks of vacation ‘depending’ started running through my head.

‘Long story short’:

I wound up spending the next 5.5 hours trying to (a) determine the cause of the problem and/or (at least) (b) get SOMETHING ‘jerry-rigged’ working so that I could at least go camping and worry about a final fix upon return.

Here’s what I learned/determined/did:

1. Now, I should first mention that the Living Room (Main) slide worked/continued to work ‘just fine’. No problemo! And so, as far as I know/can tell, a single 30 amp ATM fuse is used to service both slides so I did not really expect to find any problems there but, nevertheless, I decided to check and, as expected, found no problem – the (30 amp) fuse in question was just fine.

2. I went even further, by pulling the front cover off the converter and using a voltmeter, checked for 12 volts ‘down the positive rail’ of all the fuse holders for ’12 volts’ just to ensure that something had not ‘gone bump in the night’ in the converter and that there was really still, measured ‘straight to ground' , 12 volts available ‘TO’ the 30 amp fuse in question. RESULT: all looked normal – power was there and the fuse was O.K. and capable of passing power on ‘downstream’.

3. NEXT: decided to check for a bad slide ‘rocker’ switch. Since I have two slides and thus two switches, this was fairly easy to do by simply removing both switches from the wall, unplugging them from the wiring harness (5 LARGE GAUGE – at least 10G, maybe 8G wires there - and swapping them. RESULT: no problems detected with the switches. EITHER switch would operate the Main Slide; NEITHER switch would operate the Bedroom Slide.

4. NOW, I SUPPOSE I could have checked for power availability/(wiring) continuity AT the switch(es) BUT I decided not to (yet) –wanted to get going somehow and leave for camping SO: the NEXT thing I decided to do was open up the bed (platform) and check inside it. My primary goal here was to check and see if the slide actuator MOTOR/MECHANISM itself was O.K. and that the slide mechanism was capable of working at all. Once I gained access, I noticed something: ONE of the two wires which ‘came into the platform space’ to deliver power from ‘upstream’ to the slide (motor) had simply been left lying around loose on the floor and the insulation in one spot of ONE of the wires had been worn clear through on some of the metal anchoring the slide mechanism to the bedroom floor. Was I concerned??? Well no, not really, at the time, as I ‘wanted to get going’ and the 30 amp fuse was O.K. and the switch was (apparently) O.K. etc. SO I just taped it up and put some wire loom protector around (both) the incoming wires and went ‘straight for the motor/actuator mechanism’.

5. Beyond this, there did not appear to be any obvious problems inside. The connections between the (two) incoming wires and the motor wires looked ‘fine’. So, I disconnected the two motor wires from the two incoming (power) ones and ‘jumpered’ the two slide motor wires directly, using a small 12 volt lead-acid AGM UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) battery that I picked up ‘cheap’ as a ‘surplus item’ for various ‘bread boarding/bench testing’ projects and Voila! The mechanism ‘kicked into action’ and I was able to open and close the slide, as long as I supplied power directly to the motor leads.

I decided to stop my troubleshooting that that point, as I wanted to ‘get on the road’. I put all the wiring back together, but before closing up, added/wired in two short – about 5’ – 12 gauge wires which I taped together and brought out under the side of the bed so that I could do the UPS battery ‘jumpering trick’ without having to open up and get back inside the bed platform to do so.

Then I got on the road, about 7 hours later than I intended, but at least this was not going to ‘cost me’ my camping vacation plans.

So, that’s where things currently stand.

When I get back home, I’m going to have to try and chase down the source of the problem and fix it to get back to the normal and obviously more convenient method of operation.

But, before I say any more about this, I’d like to mention a second and more minor electrical problem that I also recently encountered on the grounds that the two problems I now have might be in some way related:

(Minor) Problem Summary:

I like LEDs/LED Lighting.

Years ago, one of the very first things I did was replace all the interior incandescent (‘921’) bulbs with (warm-white, 36 SMD) LED panels -brighter - 145 lux measured/’normalized’ to a base of 100 lux for the 921s at 1/7th the current draw. Previously, my converter’s cooling fan, quiet though it is, used to come on when the 7th 921 ‘fired up’; now I can turn on every single interior light without it starting. A relatively inexpensive mod, well worth doing! So, recently just for the heck of it, I had an opportunity to pick up a number (20) of 5 LED T10/194 bulb replacements for just over $6.00 so I bought them, intending to replace the 194 incandescents in my trailers Running Lights.

Now, my 5th has a total of 13 ‘running lights’:

First, there are a total of 6 AMBER ones: two located at the extreme top right and left hand side of the trailers ‘front cap’, and two more located on EACH SIDE of the trailer, one at the front and the 2nd about half way back.

All the rest of the running lights are RED – two at each of the extreme left and right sides of the trailer at the rear, and five near the roof on the back of the trailer.

In the process of replacing the 194s/running lights, I noticed something. I started at the rear of the trailer. All five went in without a hitch. ‘Ditto’ the extreme rear, RHS red R.L. but, when I went to replace the RHS middle amber RL, I noticed that that bulb was not lit. (I had ‘done a trick’ to jumper all the trailers running lights ‘on’ so that I could ensure that I ‘got’ the polarity of the LED replacements right).

O.K., no problem, I thought, just a bad bulb maybe? So I opened it up, inspected the bulb – looked just fine. Tried an LED. ‘Both ways’ (polarity). Nothing. Nada!

Got a voltmeter. Checked for power. NOTHING.

‘Crap’ again.

O.K. I thought – a (one?) bad RL. Will have to get around to looking into it ‘later’.

Long story short, however: in the course of trying to replace all the 194 RLs with LEDs, I discovered that I had a total of FOUR running lights, ALL ‘AMBER’, non-functional, with an INTERESTING ‘SYMETTRY’:

(a) BOTH AMBER Front Cap Lights were out, and
(b) BOTH MIDDLE, RHS AND LHS AMBER running lights were also out.
(c) HOWEVER, BOTH RHS AND LHS ‘FRONT’ AMBER RLs were fine…

So, I did some Googling.

Came across a very interesting and potentially, PROBABLY USEFUL post from Ray Burr of LoveYourRV.com on his ‘intermittent’ running light problems’ and how he solved them which I will study further when I get home and try to take on THIS problems as well.

However, I thought I’d mention IT HERE as maybe??? there is a relationship, a common element between these/MY two (ELECTRICAL) PROBLEMS.

Conclusions/Suggestions/Advice?

I cannot help but wonder if there just might be a common factor in both the above problems. (E.G. ‘chaffing’, a fuse, ‘bad, inappropriate ground’ somewhere?

It’s a real PITA not to have wiring diagrams/schematics. Anyone KNOW of anything that might be useful?

Specifically with regards to my bedroom slide, since both the motor and the switches seem to be fine and the converter looks to be supplying power to/across the fuse, it looks??? like the problem may/must be in the wiring/connections between the converter and the (BR) switch or (more likely???) the switch and the slide motor/actuator.

Is anyone aware if MAYBE there is another fuse or something – say a RELAY - BETWEEN (say) the BR slide switch and motor that MIGHT have blown?

(DOESN’T ‘look like it’, judging by the size (gauge) of the wires to/from the switch that are involved. ‘Beefy wires’. But maybe????)

And (again), interesting coincidence with and ‘symmetry’ in my running light problems…

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, links, etc. that might help me resolve this problem when I get back home in a couple more weeks would be most welcome.

GM.

[HammerToe]

RoyB - in response to your thoughts:

First, I did not/have not added any MORE OUTSIDE 'running' or OTHER lights. All I wanted and was in the process of trying to do was REPLACE all the 194 running light incandescent bulbs with LED substitutes WHEN I (first) noticed that ONE (middle left) AMBER RL was not working which led me to test for and realize 'No Power There' (Voltmeter) and THEN led me to notice that THREE OTHER AMBER RUNNING LIGHTS were also not working for a similar reason (no power). This 'coincidence' smacks of 'wiring issues', I think.

Regarding my bedroom slideout problem: the motor/actuator mechanisms really does NOT NEED 'all that much' in the way of power to drive then to 'do their thing'. At least, especially for the smaller? bedroom slide e-LOAD. After all, a SINGLE (apparently!) 30 AMP fuse seems to exist to 'protect BOTH' and I suspect that 'they' came up with that fuse size/capacity taking into consideration that, while unlikely, SOMEONE OR OTHER would, sooner or later, try to open or close BOTH SLIDES simultaneously and EVEN under those conditions, you wouldn't want the fuse to blow. The fuse, in this case (my bet) is designed to protect against EXTREME overloads and/or short circuits.

30 amps at 12 volts is only about 360 watts or so and even THAT demand is within the capability of my small 7AH or so 12 volt AGM Cell to deliver SEVERAL TIMES to open and close my bedroom slide THROUGH some short, 'normal' (maybe 16 gauge) stranded wire test leads/jumpers and the 5' or so of 12 gauge I added to allow me direct (electrical) access to the slide motor.

If you are finding that you need to jumper in your TV battery 'in' on occasion to get your slides to open/close 'easily', I would suspect that maybe your onboard battery is either undercharged or otherwise weak/failing or that there may be problems somewhere else.

[RoyB]

Sometimes on my fifth wheel i have to jumper my truck start battery across the fifth wheel battery to get my slides to work. In my case I sometimes need just a few more amps available to operate them...

Perhaps you trailer battery was not fully charged. I have no idea about the modern day RV battery disconnects. Maybe that was open to your RV at the time and only your converter/charger was trying to move the slides without the trailer battery also in the loop.???

Regarding additional outside lights - Hope you have not added more visible lights that may violate the DOT SAFETY laws regarding safety lights.

I would check in with your local DMV/DOT place (Canada Equiv) to see if you have violated any DOT rules. If they are deemed safety lights then they also have to be DOT APPROVED safety lights. Thats alot of outside lights.

Roy Ken