Electric stabilizers

[bigbird337]

I have a 2012 Wildwood 26tbss. It came with Lippert Electic Stabilizers. I an wondering is it better to extend them down as far as possible or block them up and keep them as close to the frame as possible for better stabilization of the trailer

[Huntindog]

facory wrote:
Really? How often does one run into all of the variables you have just described? Would be a very strange site to have mud, rocky soil, sand and dirt all crammed into one site. Would be a place on earth yet to be explored. But hey, if it works for you, great.

You need to get out more.🙂

[facory]

Really? How often does one run into all of the variables you have just described? Would be a very strange site to have mud, rocky soil, sand and dirt all crammed into one site. Would be a place on earth yet to be explored. But hey, if it works for you, great.

[Huntindog]

facory wrote:
If you're racking the frame you don't know how to use them.

You are wrong.
Boondocking brings a different set of problems to a process that is problematic at best...

Did you even read, or better yet comprehend the problem of ground settling?

Here is the first problem. One jack may be on rocky soil, another on sand, one on dirt, and another on mud. You get that all worked out then the weather changes. It could rain, causing the dirt to become mud. Or maybe setup was done when the ground was frozen, then it warms up. The side with the most sun will get soft first.

Then there is the lack of levelness of the site. This will cause the stabilizers to have different lengths... Blocks of wood MAY help in this situation to a degree. But the different lengths will mean that the shorter stabilizer has a higher effective gear ratio than the taller ones. This means that just giving each one a single turn or half turn etc. WILL result in uneven pressure. So will using a torque measuring device such as the clutch on a cordless drill, or even a torque wrench... It boils down to trial and error.
Some TTs depending on the design may not show any visible signs of the frame racking such as sticking doors,,, but the frame is STILL racked. Others such as the one I had will let you know imediatly if it is racked even the smallest amount.

People who camp in campgrounds will have a much easier time with this. Many times they have a pad. Concrete, asphalt, gravel or packed dirt that has been compacted by hundreds of campers over many years.. They also tend to be fair weather campers, which makes it even less of a problem for them.

[facory]

If you're racking the frame you don't know how to use them.

[Huntindog]

facory wrote:
The only thing good about these is that you can just stand there and push a button. HOWEVER, as far as I'm concerned they are only that - convenient. They don't provide much stabilization. The only good stabilizer jacks are the scissor type. You can get add on power units for these or use an electric drill w/ 3/4" socket to make the job easy. They provide excellent support.

Just my .02.

I had those on my last TT. Had to adjust hem perfectly to keep the frame from racking and making either the bathroom door not latch, or the entry door stick.. Once done, it wouldn't stay that way. as the grounds settled I had to repeat the process every few days. What a pain.

With these new jacks, it is impossible to rack the frame. When the ground settles, the whole TT gets loose. A quick touch of the buttons tightens it right up... I got these on this TT by pure chance... They are now something I won't be without.

[myredracer]

Having slept on it, I have a solution - dual elec. stab jacks front and rear. After all, trailers have dual axles! Watch for it in the mods. forum.... :B

[facory]

The only thing good about these is that you can just stand there and push a button. HOWEVER, as far as I'm concerned they are only that - convenient. They don't provide much stabilization. The only good stabilizer jacks are the scissor type. You can get add on power units for these or use an electric drill w/ 3/4" socket to make the job easy. They provide excellent support.

Just my .02.

[Huntindog]

I just had a thought of another possibility. I have always assumed that when my jacks stalled, that is exactly what happened... I have never checked into this, but I suppose that it could be the circuit breaker tripping as load increases and the amp draw goes up. They are automatic resetting breakers. My thought is that if oversized breakers were installed, that possibly the motor could make enough power to do some harm... But if this theory is correct, them it is a faulty installation, not the jacks fault
I will look into this when I get a chance. It may be awhile though as the TT is parked in a non testable position right now, and it is to hot here now to do anything that isn't necessary outside.

[jaycocreek]

I'm quite sure there was no shift in support from the tongue jack when my fronts kinked. There was a loud bang as I was lowering the arms, and sure enough, there was a ripple in the side walls of the arms right where the angle support come in.

Same happened here but to everyone that it has not happened to, we over loaded it and were at fault being new to rv's and such.

Corner jacks are far better than these so called stabilizers.

[Huntindog]

brulaz wrote:

myredracer wrote:

...
If you look closely at how the electric stabilizers flex and move around, if they wanted to, they could use thicker steel and stonger pivot bolts, but they build them the lightest and cheapest possible. It's surprising to see how much movement there is at the pivot bolt where the angle braces connect to the leg.
...

When they crumple permanently, it's right there "where the angle braces connect to the leg". The pivot bolts are fine. I'm thinking of bolting on a piece of 2"x2"x1/8" steel box along the whole outside length of each leg.

If you really overload them, for example overloading the rears by lifting the front with the tongue jack :), you will also bend the main casing (the U piece running from side to side with the screw in it) in the middle. Presumably you could strengthen that as well with another piece of U overlaying it.

But I'm hoping that just strengthening the arms will be good enough, if I'm careful. Haven't done this yet, just looking around for the steel box pieces right now. Have a new one coming from Outdoors RV under warranty to replace the badly crumpled one with the frozen motor.

As I said before. Take one apart and study it. That U beam is actually two beams. The outside one, and a slightly smaller one that nests inside of it and slides back and forth providing the equal pressure function.

With the comments you are making, you really don't have a full understanding of how it works.
Nor did I until I took mine apart to repair them after forgetting to retract them.

You need to understand it before starting to modify individual parts of it.

[wmoses]

brulaz wrote:
Alas, I'm not a welder. I do have drills and good metal bits though.
🙂

But, Engineers!!! Looked up the formula for beam deflection, plugged in Moment of Inertia (.486 in^4, 2"x2"x1/8" struct steel), Modulus of Elasticity (2.9E7psi), 30" beam length and set 2000# at centre. The formula (if I've done it all right) says the deflection will only be 0.08" at the centre. 4000# would deflect 0.16". What this doesn't tell me is whether the beam will collapse at that deflection. But I hope not, especially with the original arm bolted to it.

I am not an engineer, so any comments appreciated.

Probably not, but to know for sure you'd have to look up the formula for buckling. However I would not expect 2000# to be dumped to that stabilizer either. To much "give" in other parts of the RV before that would happen, especially if you are following instructions and not attempting to use the stabilizer as a jack.

I like the use of the word "collapse". Suggests instability which is the mode of failure that would happen when an open section fails - it is typically by buckling. I think you also used the word "kinked" which is how the side wall of that open section would look when buckled.

For a non-engineer you acquit yourself very respectably, technically. 🙂

[Huntindog]

brulaz wrote:

Huntindog wrote:
OK front to rear.
It is interesting that you were able to kink them like that.
I often encounter just that situation, and due to the quick to ground (QTG) feature, it simply stalls the motor with little lift...
FYI, QTG is a feature on most stabilizing jacks.
What it does is lower the jack a large amount with each turn of the screw initially, and less with each subsequent turn. This makes the jack weaker due to a taller effective gear ratio at the beginning of deployment, but faster. As it reaches the end of its travel the jack slows down due to a lower effective gear ratio, but is much stronger. Hence the name "Quick to Ground"
This why it would be impossible for the motor to supply enough force to kink the jack as you describe.... It would need some help.

What will cause them to kink would be if the tongue jack was retracted while the stabilizers were deployed in that position.... But that would damage just about any stabilizing jack.

That is the ONLY way I can see that happening.
And it is NOT the fault of the jack. They were never designed to be the sole source of support.

As for Northwood frames, they are some of the better ones, but they are not all that different than many other TT frames... I strongly suspect that Northwoods would advise against using jacks like you desire.

I'm beginning to wonder if we're talking about the same jacks.

Mine seem to go down at the same speed all the time. I'll have to look at the threads, but I suspect the rod is threaded the same over its full length.

And I've never seen the motors stall (other than when one was frozen solid). In fact I've often thought that the motors Lippert put on were *too* strong, or stronger than the arms anyway. Otherwise how could they kink the arms when lowering?

I'm quite sure there was no shift in support from the tongue jack when my fronts kinked. There was a loud bang as I was lowering the arms, and sure enough, there was a ripple in the side walls of the arms right where the angle support come in. Luckily not as bad as what happened to the rears.

Pretty sure this happened when the 110VAC was connected so the motors would have had the full 13.6V of the converter as well as the batteries. Maybe if it was batteries only, and weaker batteries at lower voltage the motors would stall without kinking the arm. Dunno.

But whatever the reason, I really don't want to have to worry about it in the future. Hence the reinforcements.

Don't bother looking at the threads. They are the same along the entire shaft. It has to do with leverage and angles.
Time your jacks over the first two inches of travel.(vertical) Then the last two inches of travel. Or operate them manually while counting the turns.
Then study it as to what is happening.
As I said before, most if not all styles of stabilizing jacks work the same way in this respect.
I often am on shore power or generator when using my jacks, so that little bit of extra voltage isn't a factor... It is not nearly as big a factor as the effective gear ratio difference anyway.

[brulaz]

duplicate

[brulaz]

Huntindog wrote:
OK front to rear.
It is interesting that you were able to kink them like that.
I often encounter just that situation, and due to the quick to ground (QTG) feature, it simply stalls the motor with little lift...
FYI, QTG is a feature on most stabilizing jacks.
What it does is lower the jack a large amount with each turn of the screw initially, and less with each subsequent turn. This makes the jack weaker due to a taller effective gear ratio at the beginning of deployment, but faster. As it reaches the end of its travel the jack slows down due to a lower effective gear ratio, but is much stronger. Hence the name "Quick to Ground"
This why it would be impossible for the motor to supply enough force to kink the jack as you describe.... It would need some help.

What will cause them to kink would be if the tongue jack was retracted while the stabilizers were deployed in that position.... But that would damage just about any stabilizing jack.

That is the ONLY way I can see that happening.
And it is NOT the fault of the jack. They were never designed to be the sole source of support.

As for Northwood frames, they are some of the better ones, but they are not all that different than many other TT frames... I strongly suspect that Northwoods would advise against using jacks like you desire.

I'm beginning to wonder if we're talking about the same jacks.

Mine seem to go down at the same speed all the time. I'll have to look at the threads, but I suspect the rod is threaded the same over its full length.

And I've never seen the motors stall (other than when one was frozen solid). In fact I've often thought that the motors Lippert put on were *too* strong, or stronger than the arms anyway. Otherwise how could they kink the arms when lowering?

I'm quite sure there was no shift in support from the tongue jack when my fronts kinked. There was a loud bang as I was lowering the arms, and sure enough, there was a ripple in the side walls of the arms right where the angle support come in. Luckily not as bad as what happened to the rears.

Pretty sure this happened when the 110VAC was connected so the motors would have had the full 13.6V of the converter as well as the batteries. Maybe if it was batteries only, and weaker batteries at lower voltage the motors would stall without kinking the arm. Dunno.

But whatever the reason, I really don't want to have to worry about it in the future. Hence the reinforcements.