Atwood electric jacks control panel will not turn on

[mikestock]

I have a 2006 Phaeton with Atwood electric jacks.
Since the coach has been in storage for a couple of months I started it up and ran the electric jacks to exercise them. They leveled up fine but when I tried to retract the right rear went into error mode with green and red lights blinking. The entire system stopped. This jack has been a problem in the past.

I made several attempts to reset and it continued to go into error. I tried raising the adjacent LR and RF jacks to get pressure off this jack but nothing worked. Red and green continued to blink for the RR jack. I went down to the panel, pulled and replaced the fuse for that jack. After that my control panel in the coach would not turn on. I tried it with and without the engine running, which shouldn't matter. I have an installation guide, which shows a couple of critical steps to installing the control panel. I tried the two critical steps to see if removing a fuse may have required performing a reinstall, but no good.

Upon search, I found that Atwood has sold out to Dometic and the Atwood customer service, which has been great in the past, cannot be found. Anyone have any expertise with Atwood electric jacks?

[fred42]

mikestock wrote:
My problem is that the control pad will not start. Brake on, transmission in neutral, motor running.

Did you mean: "transmission in Park"?

Also, I can have my engine running, trans in Park, Brake on and my control panel will not turn on. I have to have the slides in as well.

[mikestock]

Great news.

I spoke with Brent Bullard today from Tiffin. He said they got 7 of these control panels and touch pads from Leppart. They are supposed to be drop-in replacements and the price from Tiffin if only $377 as compared to $495, direct from Leppert. You do have to replace the touch pad with the one supplied.

If I can't get mine up and working this weekend I will drive to Red Bay Monday. It's just over 100 miles from me.

[Bruce_Brown]

mikestock wrote:
I'm more than a little skeptical, but Leppert claims to have a replacement for the Atwood 80618 controller. I would need to replace the controller and the touch pad.

The person at Tiffin is Brent Bullard, who I hope to discuss this with before diving in. The price for the the controller and touch pad is $495.95, which would be much better than replacing the entire system.

It would be cheaper, for sure, but would it be better?

At what point do you cut your losses and move on. Use that $500 towards the new hydraulic jacks instead.

I'm asking as much as saying too, as we are currently in the same boat. So far ours are still working, but I'm about out of parts. At some point we won't have a choice except replace the system. The question is when.

I our case I have 2 daughters getting married within a year, so I'm trying to bleed ours along a bit longer - for now.

[dougrainer]

mikestock wrote:
I'm more than a little skeptical, but Leppert claims to have a replacement for the Atwood 80618 controller. I would need to replace the controller and the touch pad.

The person at Tiffin is Brent Bullard, who I hope to discuss this with before diving in. The price for the the controller and touch pad is $495.95, which would be much better than replacing the entire system.

Let us know. The last time Brent and I talked last year, the only parts Tiffin had were the complete Jacks. Also, the controllers have changed over the years. YOURS the jacks probably have just 2 wires at each jack. Those 2 wires just operate the motor. The newer Atwood Jacks have 4 wires. The original 2 and the extra 2 are for the jack down sensor operation. When you install a NEW style jack on a OLD style system you do NOT use the extra 2 wire sensor connection as there is no wire harness for it. So, make sure the newer style controllers and Keypads will work with the older style jacks. Doug

PS, when Atwood was bought out, almost ALL their seasoned/ knowledgable employees did not move to the new purchasers. You call LCI and they have NOBODY that know anything about the Atwood Levelegs systems. They read the same operations manual you already have when troubleshooting.

[mikestock]

I'm more than a little skeptical, but Leppert claims to have a replacement for the Atwood 80618 controller. I would need to replace the controller and the touch pad.

The person at Tiffin is Brent Bullard, who I hope to discuss this with before diving in. The price for the the controller and touch pad is $495.95, which would be much better than replacing the entire system.

[dougrainer]

mikestock wrote:

haste maker wrote:
My Atwood jacks did the same thing as yours & my RV repair shop reset the system & now the panel lights up as it should & the shop said all the jacks work fine.

Where did you find someone to do this repair?

My problem is that the control pad will not come on. Brake on, transmission in neutral, motor running. I have acquired a lot of information on the system.

Trouble shooting procedure is to disconnect the + buss from the controller, unplug the Signal Wire Harness, waiting 10 minutes (didn't find out about the 10 minute wait until today), replacing the + buss, (most important) plug the Signal Wire Harness last. I think this is how they reset the system. While the connector was unplugged I confirmed 12 volts from the ignition switch when the ignition was on.

After all this, the "ON" switch still would not work.

I'm about to, sadly, conclude that the controller is bad. I was able to acquire one about 4 years ago when Atwood was in business. They have since been sold off to Dometic and then Leppert bought the leveler business from Dometic. My chances don't look good if the controller is, indeed, bad.

NOBODY has the controllers anymore. I tried a few years ago for a customer and could find no source that had NEW controllers. Remember, the controllers are stated as a FORD controller but you program them for a Diesel with air bag systems. Doug

[haste_maker]

mikestock wrote:

haste maker wrote:
My Atwood jacks did the same thing as yours & my RV repair shop reset the system & now the panel lights up as it should & the shop said all the jacks work fine.

Where did you find someone to do this repair?

My problem is that the control pad will not come on.

I'm about to, sadly, conclude that the controller is bad.

Mine was doing the same as yours & I thought the dash panel was bad...The good people at Unlimited RV in Cullman fixed mine.

[purplekeenah]

I had continuous issues with the Atwood jacks since I bought the rig in 2010 when the rig only had 3200 miles on it. After board replacements, jack repair, jack replacements, multiple faults, etc, etc, I had the whole system removed and replaced totally with an HWH system. Not cheap, but, peace of mind is worth plenty!
I replaced the system last September in Elkhart.

[mikestock]

haste maker wrote:
My Atwood jacks did the same thing as yours & my RV repair shop reset the system & now the panel lights up as it should & the shop said all the jacks work fine.

Where did you find someone to do this repair?

My problem is that the control pad will not come on. Brake on, transmission in neutral, motor running. I have acquired a lot of information on the system.

Trouble shooting procedure is to disconnect the + buss from the controller, unplug the Signal Wire Harness, waiting 10 minutes (didn't find out about the 10 minute wait until today), replacing the + buss, (most important) plug the Signal Wire Harness last. I think this is how they reset the system. While the connector was unplugged I confirmed 12 volts from the ignition switch when the ignition was on.

After all this, the "ON" switch still would not work.

I'm about to, sadly, conclude that the controller is bad. I was able to acquire one about 4 years ago when Atwood was in business. They have since been sold off to Dometic and then Leppert bought the leveler business from Dometic. My chances don't look good if the controller is, indeed, bad.

[fred42]

mikestock,

I have a 2007 Allegro that has had a problem with the Left Front jack not retracting. I can't remember if the red/green were on solid or blinking for that location. I may have a slightly different model than your Phaeton. You said you had the Installation guide. Was that the Installation-Operation-Maintenance Guide? If not here are some clips from the trouble shooting on page 4 and 5. My system has to have the Engine running, Trans in Park, Park brake on, and Slides in to work.

[haste_maker]

My Atwood jacks did the same thing as yours & my RV repair shop reset the system & now the panel lights up as it should & the shop said all the jacks work fine.

[mikestock]

"m still holding out that something minor is causing the control panel not to light up. As my RR jack went into failure mode I turned the ignition off and on several times, looking for it to reset. When this failed I went down, pulled the RR fuse and replaced to see if this would reset it. After that, nothing worked. I replaced the controller module a few years back with a new one that Atwood supplied so I have the specific steps they require to install properly. The last two steps were critical, so I disconnected these two connections and replaced. No joy. I'm headed back out to take a fresh look this morning.

Interested in the cost of replacing the system with Big Foot.

[philandterri]

We are happy with the system, had then installed in Lakeland Florida in March 2018. The main office is in White Pigeon MI.

[Teacher_s_Pet]

philandterri wrote:
I had Atwood Levelegs jacks on my motorhome, the control module went bad and we could not find a replacement. Dometic nor Lippert had any. Sent it to a company that repairs electronics, said it was not repairable. Salvage yards had one for several hundrad dollar with no guarantee. Tried Ebay and Amazon, no luck. Replaced the system with BigFoot Jacks.

How do you like the Bigfoot Jacks? We're located in Elkhart for the new few months selling some property, so ours would be a factory install in White Pigeon, MI.

[Teacher_s_Pet]

I've found no help..have both rear Levelegs broken now on our 2006 Phaeton. Was at Red Bay last week all that could be had was used. We received no error codes when these went out, which was quite different than all the alarms and lights when the previous 4 or 5 failed. The gentleman at Bunkhouse RV (across the road from the Tiffin Service Center) advised us that no alarms or lights were signs of control board failure, that took out the jacks also by over extending. He had the used Levelegs, but did not advise replacing them since no control panels were to be had. We could spend $700 for two jacks plus installation and still have a non-working system. We are opting for a new system from Bigfoot with 4-17,000 pound jacks with individual pumps at each jack. Atwood is now part of Lippert Components, so we're all out of luck.