Schwintek slide dead in extended position

The slides on the new Bus are a combination of HWH hydraulic in the front, and Schwintek electric in the bedroom.

So today we were closing up to move sites within the same RV park. All was working well until the DW tried to retract the PS rear slide. The DS rear slide was already retracted. Checked all the usual things that I could think of. Fuses, power source, and electrical circuits.  No individual breakers on the 17' Bus though. The only electrical circuits were in the front DS bay in a circuit breaker panel with re-settable pop out breakers. All looked normal. The two corresponding lights to the rear slides on the LED panel would blink when the switch was pushed though.

A call to Tiffin Service and I talked to a service tech. We walked through a variety of steps, concentrating on the Lippert controllers in a PS rear bay. We even tried to jump across the inputs on the controller to provide power to the motor, but it still wouldn't move.

Then we tried plugging the wires from the non working controller into the working one. The motor still wouldn't move.

As a last resort we called a mobile tech that happened to live here in the park. He tested some of the electrical outputs and found that the controller had power.

At a dead end, we got me and the wife along with the tech and pushed on the outside of the slide trying to move it in. Even with the motor wires unhooked, we only managed to move the slide about an inch or so. But I figured it was worth a shot, so I had the Diane go inside and turn on the key and hit the retract switch. Lo and behold the slide retracted!

We moved spaces and set up in the new spot. We ran all slides out as normal, and then retracted the problem slide without a problem.

So the question is, does the motor have a short that is making it intermittent? Could the extend parameters be adjusted out too far? I don't know, but we are feeling a bit sketchy about the slide now. I am here for 5 days before heading out for some dry camping in Quartzite for the weekend. I was planning on running the slide in and out every day just to check operation. Anyone else have any other suggestions :?

It does sound like it is related to either the position of the motor or the slide itself.

Moving it in a little might have either got it off a bad spot on the armature or off an interlock of some kind.

From what you describe it seems as though the controller and wiring are probably not the problem.

Maybe the Tiffin guys will have more ideas after you tell them how you got it to work.

I will have tools at KOFA if you need anything.

If they need to send you parts you can send them to me and I will bring them down to KOFA.  Just PM me for the address here in Lake Havasu.

I changed one of my slideout motors a few years ago.

See you there next week.

Assuming your Schwinteks are like mine-

Go to the Schwintech website. They have very good instructions on resetting the modules.

Here's the troubleshooting guide:

http://liferebooted.net/2018-phaeton-40ih/Schwintek-Slide-Troubleshooting-Guide.pdf

When I did the walk-through on my motorhome, Greg, the tech that I did the walk-through suggested printing it out and putting it with the rest of the manuals. He also told me when extending and stowing the slides, to hold the button down for 3 to 5 seconds after the slide stops each time. That keeps the motors synched.

Thanks for the offer Bill, hopefully I won't need it! I too was thinking a dead spot on the motor somewhere. I had a similar problem with the awning on my Phaeton. I used it so much that if the awning was extended all the way out it would stop responding to the controller to pull it back in.  If I got the ladder out and a socket wrench and cranked it in an inch, it would roll right up.  Eventually I had to replace the awning motor. 

Thanks for link kdg, after the crisis was over I searched out the manuals on Lippert's web site and downloaded an operations and a trouble shooting manual.  You never think of doing that stuff before you need it. I even located a bunch of u-tube video's one the subject. Something else I didn't think of before hand.

Sarge, you got to love electrical problems.  Ugh.  Our Jacks would not retract two of the last three times they were deployed.  Fix (at least temporarily) was to disconnect power at jack while power to jacks was on.  Then turn off jacks, reconnect power to jack and then turn jacks back on.  We did that twice.  Not too difficult to reach between front wheel and chassis to disconnect.  But it's not something I want to do on a regular basis.  Coach is being serviced at the moment.  Hopefully they will figure it out.  It began after the same dealer worked on our entry steps.  The steps failed to retract twice when starting out.  Fortunately the DW saw they were still extended and we got them in before hitting something.  When we brought it in for service, the owner of the shop made a comment that the jacks didn't sound right.  I believe he thought there was a connection with the entry step.  It's all electrical.  So it's possible his fix of the steps caused the problem.  In any event, I hope he's not planning on charging a bunch of $$$ for the fix.  Then my electric driver seat works fine except when it's at the 3:00 O:Clock position.  Turn it 90? and nothing.  No movement.  Before, the same dealer worked on it, from time to time, it wouldn't work in any position.  Dealer claimed bad ground. 

Regarding your slide Sarge, you might want to talk to Mike and Wendy.  They have a newer Tiffin.  The main slide on their Allegro failed a while back.  I doubt it's the same issue since they needed new parts.  Still, Mike may have some wisdom on what causes them to fail.  Like you, there was no way they were going to push it in.  Good luck getting it fixed. 

SargeW said:

Thanks for link kdg, after the crisis was over I searched out the manuals on Lippert's web site and downloaded an operations and a trouble shooting manual.  You never think of doing that stuff before you need it. I even located a bunch of u-tube video's one the subject. Something else I didn't think of before hand.

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I was fortunate Greg told to get them before I need them. He's actually pretty good. That's the third walk-thru I had with him, and we get along very well. It can be handy with a relationship like that, we get extra goodies from him, like a quick connect hose to the water pump for anti-freeze etc.  He also appreciates that even though we aren't new at this, we listen to what he has to say, and not act like we know it all, because all RV's aren't the same.
I haven't looked lately, but I think to push them in manually, you have to pull the outside seal/wiper back, then loosen the motors to get them away from the track. That's from memory, so don't take it as gospel.

Yeah, a few of the video's I found were from Lippert and demonstrated how to disengage the motors if necessary. Hopefully it won't get to that.

Is this the bedroom slide where the bed has to be in the up position ?  If so, there is a limit switch at the top of the bed that goes out of wack. I finally cut the wires to the switch and jumpered them together so the slide works ALL the time.  Only issue is to be sure the bed is up when you pull the slide in.

No, I did not want the power bed option Pete. I may have to disassemble part of the bed to find the wires.

I doubt that our experience applies directly but here goes:  The hydraulic slide was out and we hit the "retract" button, it came in about 90% and stopped and would not respond.  To make a long story short, there was a microswitch on the slide lock that failed.  This microswitch killed the power to the hydraulic pump via the control board.  To look at it, it would seem that the microswitch would have limited the travel of the lock motor but not so, it prevented the slide from moving unless the lock was open I guess.  Anyway, we took the microswitch out of the circuit and now we count on the hydraulics to keep the slide closed.  So, if there are position switches on your slide, you might wanna check those... especially if you have a slide lock or any other "safety" interlocks.  FYI.

So Marty,,, did you find the problem ?

Not yet, but I am about 30 minutes away from opening the bottom of the bed to check the conditions of the wires. Maybe I will find one that is strained and causing a loss of contact.  Other than that I am stumped.

Ours was the hydraulic pump on the living room slide. Tiffin said you needed 4or 5 big guys to push it manually. They sent out the whole assembly. We sat in a SnoPark for 5 days before the replacement arrived and was installed. Don?t ya love RVing?

Well I checked under the bed platform where the mass of wires is at the rear of the coach.  The only thing I could find that was a little suspicious was a network cable connection for the Spyder system had a clip together connector that had one side of the female end clip broken off. When I touched it the connector came apart easily. The pins inside all looked good so I reconnected it and put a zip tie around it to keep it snugly together. Other than that, everything under there was securely tied up. I even checked the connections behind the main Spyder panel in the closet. All were firmly seated and tight.  And I did run the slid in and out without a hitch. We are due to leave tomorrow to meet up with Kevin Means in the desert by Quartzsite. Hopefully all will work as designed. 

Wendy said:

Ours was the hydraulic pump on the living room slide. Tiffin said you needed 4or 5 big guys to push it manually. They sent out the whole assembly. We sat in a SnoPark for 5 days before the replacement arrived and was installed. Don?t ya love RVing?

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Do you mean the whole hydraulic pump assembly? Yikes!  Heck yeah, RVing is not for the faint of heart!