A&E Awning - Intermittent Operation

I have an A&E One Step awning, original to the coach, on my 2002 Winnebago Adventurer.  In the two years we have owned the coach I have learned that there is a system to operating this awning without running into an intermittent 'out' period.  The trick is to extend or retract the awning with one consistent push of the button.  If you stop in between you will not be able to restart for 10-15 minutes.  So something is obviously going wrong.

The fuse in the control box does not blow and the motor does not feel hot but something is obviously going on vacation for a bit.  Last summer I pulled one of my boneheaded moves and tried to drive out of a camp site before retracting the awning (skipped that on the checklist).  I stopped just as the awning made slight contact with a tree - but not enough to bend the tube or tear the awning.  I backed up about a foot and started to retract the awning but saw it was not rolling evenly on the tube so I stopped the retract and that was it - it would not either extend or retract at all.  I backed completely onto the site and waited but still no power to retract I checked the fuse and it was good.  So then I followed the A&E instructions and made up a jumper cable to plug into the auxiliary plug near the control box and ran it to the batteries below the steps just a few feet away.  The awning instantly retracted  and then extended with no problem.  Nice to know that this emergency system works.

Question:  Can anybody give me a clue on what the problem is?  Must be somewhere in the control box or in the motor itself but one would think the fuse would blow if it is an overload problem. Still, I feel a bit hinky about even extending the awning now. 

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Bill N said:

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Bill, say that again except not as loud this time.  ;D

Rene T said:

Bill, say that again except not as loud this time.  ;D

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One of those things Rene.  Yesterday I posted a pretty long post covering just about the same thing as in that January post with some additional problems.  Today I could not find it so did a search and the January post showed up.  There were so alike that I thought this was the post from yesterday that was misdated but it turns out that yesterdays post never showed up so I could not find out how to delete my post regarding what I thought was a missed post and bad date so I just modified it by deleting all the wording.  Cannot find out how to delete an entire post.  Sorry.

Bill

The problem would appear to be inadequate size wires to the awning. Only sucessful solution likely will be rewiring with adequate (larger) wires! E.g. build in the jumper cables! (

Ernie

Ernie n Tara said:

The problem would appear to be inadequate size wires to the awning. Only sucessful solution likely will be rewiring with adequate (larger) wires! E.g. build in the jumper cables! (

Ernie

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That may be the problem Ernie but this coach is 15 years old and the problem only started last year plus it was a factory installed awning.  I am starting to think that the motor may be either weak or getting gunked up and overloading the wiring system.  Thanks for your reply;.