Slideout will not extend

[mike740ski]

Looks like this will be the year of the gremlins. Out camping now this week. The remote slide out wont work. The RF panel lights are not active. Neither the blue or red lights will activate when I hit tha wake up button. Looked into manual method and two issues with that: The crank handle hits truck so that is useless. Second problem was the tip of the long socket mechanism used for cranking the slide is broken and And just spins. I Attempted to go with half turns of the crank when realized nothing was happening.

Tried powering down the whole camper and then back up. Did not work. Since the slide out is on top of the cabover step, I cannot inspect the fuses. Not sure where any if or where any breakers for the slide out might be. All other electrical is working.

My logic, make sense?:

Reviewing the electrical schematic right now. If its not the motor, could be 40a breaker, thermo limited circuit breaker, or 20 a act fuse. Since no power to activation switch, that eliminates thermo cb. I assume 40 a breaker also feeds other appliances? That would eliminate 40a breaker then, leaving 20 amp act fuse, which I can't get at since the slide out is currently on top of the cabover step.

Something happened Friday nite between the time I retracted the slide to head out, and the time we pulled into camp 4 hrs later and tried to extend it.

[chalet05]

Deleted

[Ski_Pro_3]

My 2012 Lance uses a hex/allen head on the manual crank and it broke too. I fixed it with a socket and some JB weld.

[mike740ski]

skipro3 wrote:
Check all the connections and make sure they are good. Also, get that manual crank fixed or replaced. Just to be extra safe, figure out how to access the motor and add a wire so you can hook up a remote battery directly to the motor to run it, in case the control board acts up and the crank is broke again. You can never be too careful!!

Agree, going to take your advice. Pic of busted 18" or so tube with 1/2 sockets welded at each end. One end broke....

Part on order as of Noon today.

[Ski_Pro_3]

Check all the connections and make sure they are good. Also, get that manual crank fixed or replaced. Just to be extra safe, figure out how to access the motor and add a wire so you can hook up a remote battery directly to the motor to run it, in case the control board acts up and the crank is broke again. You can never be too careful!!

[mike740ski]

mike740ski wrote:
.... I am going to power everything down again one more time (Lance technical support just emailed me with that suggestion)..... .

Case Closed for now. Thanks all. I don't understand how this unit goes into sleep mode, but I can confirm that after the battery disconnected, and shore power disconnected for 24 hours - after powering back up this afternoon, the remote activation panel is now working. I was able to extend the slideout, and retract. Beats me.

[Ski_Pro_3]

mike740ski wrote:

The schematic shows no fuse in the activation switch panel. The remote activation switch panel (located by the stairs and door)is connected back to the controller base receiver (which is under the cabover step) via a phone cable, that's it. I did try plugging in the remote directly into the activation switch via the cable that comes with it. That did not work.

The way the remote works with the cord plugged into the remote activation switch is like this;
First, the remote must either have a dead battery or the battery removed. If you try to use the cord with a working battery in the remote, the slide will not work. Trust me on this. The only way the remote works with the cord is when it doesn't have a battery.
Second, you must wake-up the remote panel and have a red light. Unless the light is red, the remote won't work wirelessly or with the cord.

The phone cable does two things; it shorts out a wire back to the main board to wake it up, and it sends a voltage to the remote board to light the LED. Since you can't check the far end of the phone cord, all you can do is see if the remote switch is shorting out two of the wires on the phone cord. A volt meter in ohm mode will tell you if you are doing this. However, it's easier to just get a jumper and jumper the 4-pin RJ-11 connector the phone cable plugs into. Remove the remote panel, expose the RJ-11 socket, and with the phone cable plugged in, short out pins 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 2 and 4, 3 and 4. One of those short has to be the same as pushing the button. If the LED still doesn't light, then there's a problem back at the main control board.

If you can see under the slide where the motor and the overload breaker is, you might try to jumper 12 volts to this point. This would bypass the main control board and put 12 volts straight to the motor. Remember, polarity will determine if the slide is going to go in or out. If 12 volts doesn't work, try putting a ground to the same point.

[mike740ski]

BFL13 wrote:
Does the remote box have a fuse in it? How about where the remote plugs in ? Or where the wire goes into the remote box?

The schematic shows no fuse in the activation switch panel. The remote activation switch panel (located by the stairs and door)is connected back to the controller base receiver (which is under the cabover step) via a phone cable, that's it. I did try plugging in the remote directly into the activation switch via the cable that comes with it. That did not work.

[mike740ski]

skipro3 wrote:
Your red and blue lights are not coming on. The red light should come one when you push the activate button and it should also come on when doing a power-off-reset. The blue light comes on when it receives an RF signal from the remote. Since you don't have a red light, you'll never get a blue light. Do your remote control jacks work? Most likely not since you don't have the red light. This isolates it to the controller board located with the battery under the cabover step. Since you can't get to the step with the slide in, you'll have to fix the manual crank and get it out. Don't forget the brake switch. There's a switch that requires you to disable the electric brake so the manual crank can work. WAIT! If that brake switch is not set right, then the remote won't work and the red activate light won't light. Maybe it's the brake switch you need to toggle. Keep us informed I have a 2012 Lance 855S and have had every known and many unknown problems with mine. I've fixed them all and I know how those things work.

That's about where I am at. Need to get new manual crank socket - so I can retry to manually extend the slide. Probably see if I can use a socket wrench somehow so I dont' have to keep taking half turns with the crank (it hits the truck and stops every half turn). I can confirm that the manual override switch was in the "remote" position when I tried with remote, and I switched over to the "manual" position when I went to try cranking out the slide manually. I am going to power everything down again one more time (Lance technical support just emailed me with that suggestion), plus probably take the fuse out of the truck to camper power (can't unplug truck from camper - the camper is on the truck with no way to get it off right now). Confirmed, jacks cannot extend either.

[Ski_Pro_3]

Your red and blue lights are not coming on. The red light should come one when you push the activate button and it should also come on when doing a power-off-reset. The blue light comes on when it receives an RF signal from the remote. Since you don't have a red light, you'll never get a blue light. Do your remote control jacks work? Most likely not since you don't have the red light. This isolates it to the controller board located with the battery under the cabover step. Since you can't get to the step with the slide in, you'll have to fix the manual crank and get it out. Don't forget the brake switch. There's a switch that requires you to disable the electric brake so the manual crank can work. WAIT! If that brake switch is not set right, then the remote won't work and the red activate light won't light. Maybe it's the brake switch you need to toggle. Keep us informed I have a 2012 Lance 855S and have had every known and many unknown problems with mine. I've fixed them all and I know how those things work.

[BFL13]

Does the remote box have a fuse in it? How about where the remote plugs in ? Or where the wire goes into the remote box?

[mike740ski]

Bill T wrote:
Mike try removing all power from camper. Disconnect shore power, unplug pigtail from truck and disconnect battery. Let unit sit for about 30 sec.s then power back up. This takes care of it for me. And be sure the remote batteries are good..

There is a fuse on the jack/slide control module, I think it is a twenty amp. On my unit there is a circuit breaker in the line to the slide motor, near the motor. But I do not think that would have a bearing on your problem.

I tried once. Will try again. What I did not do is pop the fuse from the truck power to the camper power - so will try that as effectively unplugging the pigtail - good idea. (Since the camper is stuck on the truck until I get this resolved, I cant unplug the pigtail from the truck to the camper. the entire remote system is down including remote jack extend/retract).

[Bill_T]

Mike try removing all power from camper. Disconnect shore power, unplug pigtail from truck and disconnect battery. Let unit sit for about 30 sec.s then power back up. This takes care of it for me. And be sure the remote batteries are good..

There is a fuse on the jack/slide control module, I think it is a twenty amp. On my unit there is a circuit breaker in the line to the slide motor, near the motor. But I do not think that would have a bearing on your problem.