Storage bay courtesy lights

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carson

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Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Posts
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Location
Florida, USA
  I have 3 storage bays with courtesy lights (1141 bulbs) but they will not turn on with the slide switch on each lamp. I remember having them work some time ago. I checked the bulbs and looked for fuses. no go...

  The Porch light and the Service light on the port side work ok.  What am I missing?

Under what condition are they supposed to be operational? I tried on chassis power and on house power ...no luck.

  Any ideas anyone?  My manual makes no mention of them.

carson FL

 
Two possibilities come to mind Carson:

Do you have a switch inside the coach?

Do the bay doors have switches? If so, look for possible wires pulled off the switch(es).
 
Thanks, Tom

  I have eliminated those possibilities.. no switch inside and no door switches. The lights worked before in a strictly manual mode... slide the bar on the lamp, same as all my other lamps inside the RV. The only switch inside is for the porch light. With that turned on still no light in the bays.

   But now that the Solstice is over I might not need lights in the next few months.. ;D

  I need an illuminating idea for this major problem.  :D

carson FL
 
My bounder has a master switch by the entry door that controls the luggage bay lights.  They can be turned on/off at each individual light as long as this switch is on.

They are also the only thing on ckt. 12 in my DC fuse panel.
 
Lou, you may be onto something..

  I have 3 switches near my entry door. 1 is the auto-step on'off. the second is the inside dome-light, the third is the patio/porch outside light.

  I may have to recheck switch two and three to see if I have missed them. I think I checked all possibilities but you have put a doubt in my mind. Manana...

carson
 
I share that doubt.  I have the same scenario and am convinced there is a switch just inside the door.  We head out for AZ tomorrow and somewhere on the road I will check mine.
 
Good stuff, George. Put it in your signature line below your post. I hope you are proud of your unit.
 
Gary, yep, that was my first thought. I looked in the most likely spot (Fuse panel under dash console) maybe even at the distribution box. The Chassis part is not labeled so I think I'll check each one separately. Will do that today.

Should know a little later today; will post the results.

carson FL

 
carson said:
The Chassis part is not labeled so I think I'll check each one separately.

Carson, that's why the coach wiring schematic that John mentioned is so important.  If you can get one with a simple e-mail you should go for it.  You will need to provide them your Make, Model, Year, VIN and Fin.
 
Courtesy light problem fixed....

  Thank you for all the helpful ideas presented.

  Here is what I did today: Checked every likely fuse in the RV. (There are 4 "LAMP" fuses on the power distribution center) We are talking automotive fuses-12VDC-, all were ok. All lights worked everywhere in the RV, except in the cargo bays.

  Since I had 3 cargo bay lights that did not work, I proceeded to check each bulb (1141), all ok.

To trace the wiring would be impossible, so I abandoned that idea. My final step was to use my technical logic..... What if the switches were not working? I proceeded to move the sliding switches back and forth multi times, like 20 times. (see pix below for type of lamp). After many tries I saw the light flickering, which meant there was power there. (Nothing special had to be activated inside the RV).

  Eventually, after doing the same to the other switches, they all came to life. Note: these switches had not been used for some time --5 years-- hence corrosion/oxidization of the sliding wipers of the switch was the probable the cause.

  How to fix it?  I chose to spray WD-40 into the  areas around the switch parameters hoping that enough would penetrate to do same good. The alternative would be to remove the lights and get into the innards. I did not feel it was worth the effort, because I am a believer in WD-40 for almost everything electrical and other things.

  I am now confident that that major  :) problem is fixed. Sometimes the simple things work.

carson FL




 
 

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Carson, just one more of the benefits of living in the humid SE.

You can pop those lenses out and get better access to the moving parts of the switch.

Congrats! on the fix.
 
John C.

  I am glad I fixed the problem.. Re: wiring diagrams? What do you think the chances are that The big W would have accurate prints for my 1995 Adventurer? On a scale 0f 1-10, what do you think?

  I pretty well know the rig by now except for oxidized switches.  ;)

carson FL
 
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