A & E Weather Pro Power Awning retracting problem

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coolz4

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Joined
Aug 11, 2010
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8
Location
Cincinnati, OH
The A & E Weather pro  awning on my Adventurer.  The awning extended fine and was out for four days.  When I went to retract upon pressing the button, the motor groaned and quit.  I kept pressing the button and it would groan until it finally kicked in and retracted.  The awning has be used at most 10 times, most likely less than that.

I can't fine much troubleshooting infor from Dometic's web site.  Anyone with any suggestions?
 
I have had something of the same issue, do you see any kind of tension in the bar or rods when they are contracting?  If so, you may need to do some lubrication.
 
My Carefree awning is like that if there is the slightest extra load on it, e.g. an overhanging branch drags on it. The motor just doesn't have much torque and stalls out easily.
 
If you have a wind sensor try disabling it. My sensor went bad and the awning wouldn't open or retract when it was enabled....
 
Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. I'll try them out and see what happens.  The replies make me wish I had a manual awning!
 
My Weatehr Pro did not show any of these tendencies until it was removed to replace a damaged arm. Since then it trips the motor overload quite often. It seems to be better if I apply dry silicone to the struts and pins during an extension and retraction but it will be back in a few weeks.

I have tried to figure out what is different but it is using the same tube, wiring, mounting holes, etc??? I keep thinking it is misaligned but can't find any problems.

Hope someone comes up with an answer, I have always been wary of it retracting automatically but now don't trust it at all.
 
The awning is apparently extremely intolerant of anything being the slightest bit out of tolerance, i.e., the fabric misaligned, source voltage a little low due to small wire gauge, or a low battery, etc.

Mine hasn't worked correctly since it was replaced three years ago.  A new motor was tried and that didn't cure the roll-up problem.  I tried realigning the fabric as it terminated on the roof edge and that didn't work.  If I apply 12V directly to the motor, it will roll up okay.  At this point I'm suspecting the control box.  I have good voltage going into the box (thanks to a proper sized wire!  Good engineering Winnebago!), but 12.2 volts coming out of the box when the motor is activated.  I forgot the exact voltage, but it was right at the minimum voltage specification.

Winnebago is going to try a new control box (we have an appointment at the factory next Monday), so it will be interesting to see if that fixes the problem.
 
As a last resort, use the output of the controller to switch a relay for the motor and run 12V direct from the battery or from the input to the controller to the relay.
 
Ned - exactly what I was thinking about.  Actually if you didn't care about the wind sensor and the remote control, you could easily rig something up to switch +12V and -12V directly to the motor bypassing the control box completely.  I'm going to try to keep the old (existing) control box so I can play with it some.
 
Mine also does this. The hotter the day the less it rolls up. If I go out and push gently on the arm to help it come in it rolls up fine. Think the problem is a themo circuit breaker.. Once it  stops coming in if you just wait 5 minutes it will come. I think the ambient temperature raises the pressure in the nitrogen shock. This puts just enough load that the thermo circuit pops and then you have wait until it the circuit breaker cools down. We need a slightly higher amperage thermo circuit breaker.
 
Interesting theory about the gas strut!  We're at the factory now and today we get the new control box.  They will also check to be sure there is the correct tension on the roller tube.
 
We have an A & E Weather Pro on our coach and knock on wood, have not had a problem.  The only thing we have noticed is that it does not snug up tight at the final roll up.  Tim gets out the ladder and manually pushs the arm in on both sides and puts plastic cable straps around the arms all the way at the top.  We use ours a lot and have not had the motor or any component replaced.  We however, do not use the sensor; that thing was ridiculous.

When our Oasis "over the door" awning failed, the tech said most failures of the automatic awnings were due to not using them often.  His suggestions was to extend and retract them as frequently as possible.  Don't know why, but that was his recommendation.

Marsha~
 
Our first WeatherPro would roll up faithfully, even when not appropriate (the goofy wind sensor.)  Its fatal flaw was it would never dump water, it finally turned into an ugly mess of twisted aluminum when it filled up with water and I tried to dump the water by pushing up on the awning material.  Dometic replaced it with a new one with the fabric that extended about one or two more inches more then the original.  This one will faithfully not roll up every time without stopping  ::) .
 
Just got our coach back from service  ;D ;D

They put a couple of more turns on the roller tube (a little more tension) and changed the control box.  It WORKS!  We need much more experience with it to pronounce it fully cured.
 
I had a Weather Pro awning on the Meridian for the last 4 years. During the warranty period I had the control box replaced. However, in the entire 4 years the the awning never retracted due to wind. Only on perfectly still days if the temperature changed would it roll up. However my Carefree awning on the new rig doesn't roll up in the wind either.  I think that feature was just a fantasy in some engineers mind......
 
Our Weather Pro rolls up every time that you use a hair dryer to test it the way the factory says to. :eek:

We have had two sets of fabric, three control box/sensor sets, and one complete replacement to no avail. The sensor set on the lowest setting will roll up the awning before it bounces around too much but on that setting it will also roll it up if the wind blows a couple of gentle gusts on a cool day when you do not want it retracted. If I use a higher setting the awning is bounced all over the place before the sensor starts retracting.

We also have had the fabric replaced because the $*#^$& fabric wrinkles when it rolls up and will not stretch back out when extended. The fabric is stretched out on the tube OK but the seam that is sewn across the end of the awning has bunched up the fabric.

The replacement was to switch to the standard model that extends lower that did seem to fix most of the problem of dumping water.

After we broke the front arm and had it replaced (wind) ours started stalling when extending and retracting. Since it does it extending as well as retracting I don't think tightening up the tension would help. I do lube it, especially the struts, and get it working for a short while. I do not have to wait for a thermal breaker to reset; the motor trips and as soon as I hit the switch again it tries to extend.
 
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