Ohiosnowbird
Senior Member
So we took a trip in October to verify all systems were OK for our 4 month trip starting in December. Everything worked fine except we noticed the slide motors were out of sync which left the one side not retracted by about 1-2” while still at the park. We wanted to get any problem there was going to be home so we left in that condition. When we returned home and extended the slide we noticed again the slide motors were out of sync so we went thru the sync procedure. They synced fine. If you don’t know what syncing slide motors means it means if both motors on the slides don’t shut off at the same time, they are out of sync - in the simplest terms. After syncing We extended the slide and parked the camper for usage in our driveway until we left in December. On the day we were to leave, this past Wednesday, December 24, 2025, the slide wouldn’t come in. In fact it came in maybe 6 inches and stopped. The cursed camper strikes again.
When does the lemon quit being a lemon?
It was a brand new 2023 RV.
Remember, we’re the ones who had the blackwater tank fall off days before a departure and had the leveling system fail prior to another departure. (Both documented with resolutions on this forum).
How many times does this thing that was supposed to let us have happy times get to rip our hearts out and delay the beginning of trips, make one of us cry(me-wife) and give us stressful times before heading out? Too much drama? Maybe. Rant over.
Though I will admit, the RV gods have been kind in that these disasters happen in our driveway prior to leaving home.
We’ve fixed the current slide issue and we are on the road today, but are posting this because many of the answers we needed were not online so it maybe can help someone else.
This is mostly specific to our 2023 Thor Quantum KW29(a class C) and maybe the moderators want to somehow label/reclassify this post so a Thor owner can find it (?) though there’s a lot of stuff anyone with this slide system might find useful.
One captain-obvious thing we did learn, should we ever buy another RV, if you have an entire room, like a kitchen, in a slide out, the slide will eventually fail if it’s underpowered(this according to people on the internet and we now agree with that idea). If you’re looking at an RV with a kitchen in a slide, ask questions about the motors on the slides. If it’s like ours, which is a very common system, Lippert Schwintek in-wall slide out system, ask about the torque on the motors. In our case Thor installed the cheapest they could which is a 300:1 torque motor (This means for every 300 turns of the motor, the output shaft turns once, providing high torque for medium weight loads) where a high torque 500:1 motor(designed to handle heavier slide rooms), is what should have been installed to move the weight. Lippert makes 2 speeds for this particular system and Thor chose the one that cost the least ($324 vs $400+ per motor. These are genuine Lippert parts prices, there are cheap knockoffs available.). We think we’re going to replace the 300 with 500 in the future, maybe. I’ll explain later.
There will be two of these motors, one for each slide, they are located at the top of the slide outs. The motors don’t carry the weight, so that’s why they worked as long as they did for us, we think. The motors turn a spindle which makes b,c,d (diagram below) move the room. Spindle indicated by red arrow:
As a former mechanical engineer, this is an elegant, yet inappropriate system for the work it’s being asked to do. I would have never done this to an end user.
With our slide system we eventually discovered the problem could have been any or all of three things. 1. The controller. 2. The motor 3. The wire/motor harness.
How did we determine it was the motor?
We found the controller to be an invaluable piece in the equation.
Where’s the controller? In our case it was on the side wall in the storage compartment below the failed slide.
Oh, don’t let the videos online let you think you can manually override and just push the slide in as the instructions on the controller indicate. In our case, not possible. Because of the kitchen being in the slide it was far too heavy for two people to push in. And another tidbit, if the motors are not in sync, manual override won’t work. This also took many frustrating hours to discover. You’re welcome.
But back to troubleshooting, if there’s a problem, those “status LEDs” (upper left on controller) will flash a combo of green and red. Green is on the left.
In our case it was 1 green, 8 reds meaning motor 1, error/fault 8.
They say it’s rare the controller will fail, so we were counting on the error output to be right. It was.
8 is the most common error, and “wire short” is misleading. It really means one of these three things, realized after hours spent on the internet reading.
The top left is the new motor. Top right is a hall sensor, which can be replaced if you’re so inclined. We didn’t see that effort being worthwhile.
Bottom left is how the motor looks under the plastic cover. The assembly sequence, bottom up, motor, hall sensor, magnet.
See the round thing with the white circle bottom right? That’s the magnet from our failed motor. With ours, it had fallen out of the motor cap and the hall sensor had self destructed.
The photo on the left shows where the plastic piece on top of of the motor had separated exposing the magnet and hall sensor to destruction. The photo on the right is the new motor.
Failed motor with destroyed hall sensor:
The best advice we got was to not remove the motor until we had the new one in hand. Why? Because orientation of the motor is essential. The new one has to go in exactly how the old one was positioned. This took quite some time to get right. The videos showing that you just pop it in are misleading. If you don’t get it just right there will be catastrophic failure in the near future, this from a guy on the internet describing what happened to him because he just popped it in without getting orientation right. The other thing that is crucial before you say good to go after the new motor is installed is the resyncing process to get the motors in sync.
Over 70 RV brands use the Schwintek slide-out system from Lippert, and a slide-out can get out of sync. This happens when the two sides are not matching up when fully retracted or fully extended. See my notes on how to do this below.
How did we know which motor to get with it still installed? The controller model determines that. A knowledgeable parts person should be able to help with that, it can also be found online using the controller model in your search.
We found our motor locally, but Rvupgrades has saved our bacon more than once: Lippert 236575 Schwintek Slide-Out Motor (IG-42, 10 mm) – 22 RPM Output | RVupgrades
We’re not sure the motor at rvupgrades was genuine Lippert judging from the price.
They ship overnight, but in this case it was a Friday and they couldn’t guarantee a Saturday delivery. Our local RV dealer had the actual Lippert replacement motor. It was $324.
You’ll find many videos online showing how to get to the slide motors from the outside, with our Thor, they were only accessible from the inside. That took hours to discover mainly because all the stuff online showed access from outside and we just couldn’t see how that was possible. It also wasn’t obvious from inside either because of the trim on the slide:
In videos they show moving exterior rubber seals back and popping off a metal cover. Not in our case. The left photo is the location of the failed motor, motor 1 which was behind a slide trim piece. The slide is about 1/3 retracted and the trim had been removed. God help us if we ever need access to motor 2, it’s behind the kitchen cabinet behind the slide where maybe, if the slide were fully retracted, maybe it could be accessed, photo on the right.
Did designers ever consider end users?
In studying the problem, we don’t really see where it could be accessible from outside but we’ll explore that at a future time. But hopefully that won’t become an issue anytime soon. Or if it does, in the driveway, in April when we get back where we’ll have the whole summer to resolve it. That’s when we’d upgrade from a 300:1 to a 500:1 motor.
Hope this helps someone!
===========
Some useful Lippert videos
Schwintek Slide Videos
Manual for SCHWINTEK IN-WALL SLIDEOUT SYSTEM:
In-Wall® Slide-Out | Lippert Customer Care Center
How do you fix and adjust an RV slide-out that is out of sync? Syncing the slides.
The way to retime the Schwintek slide system is simple. You go to the switch and depress the out button until the slide out fully extends. You then depress the in button and bring the slide in 8 to 10 inches. You then repeat this process a minimum of three times until the system fully retimes. The way you’ll know the system has retimed is because both sides will extend or retract at the same time. You’ll hear the motors stop at the same time, not one after the other. If you hear them stop one after the other, they are not yet synced.
The reason we need to run the system in and out three times is to give the system an opportunity to re-sync itself. The Schwintek slide system has two motors that count revolutions,,that’s your hall sensor at work. This is what keeps the system in sync, or parallel. When the system is not fully extended or fully retracted each and every time, the controller loses its zero point. When we run the system in and out three times, it allows that controller to find the zero point.
When you extend or retract the system, at the end of the stroke, you want to stay on the switch for approximately three to five seconds to assure that the controller is able to recognize the zero point.
When does the lemon quit being a lemon?
It was a brand new 2023 RV.
Remember, we’re the ones who had the blackwater tank fall off days before a departure and had the leveling system fail prior to another departure. (Both documented with resolutions on this forum).
How many times does this thing that was supposed to let us have happy times get to rip our hearts out and delay the beginning of trips, make one of us cry(me-wife) and give us stressful times before heading out? Too much drama? Maybe. Rant over.
Though I will admit, the RV gods have been kind in that these disasters happen in our driveway prior to leaving home.
We’ve fixed the current slide issue and we are on the road today, but are posting this because many of the answers we needed were not online so it maybe can help someone else.
This is mostly specific to our 2023 Thor Quantum KW29(a class C) and maybe the moderators want to somehow label/reclassify this post so a Thor owner can find it (?) though there’s a lot of stuff anyone with this slide system might find useful.
One captain-obvious thing we did learn, should we ever buy another RV, if you have an entire room, like a kitchen, in a slide out, the slide will eventually fail if it’s underpowered(this according to people on the internet and we now agree with that idea). If you’re looking at an RV with a kitchen in a slide, ask questions about the motors on the slides. If it’s like ours, which is a very common system, Lippert Schwintek in-wall slide out system, ask about the torque on the motors. In our case Thor installed the cheapest they could which is a 300:1 torque motor (This means for every 300 turns of the motor, the output shaft turns once, providing high torque for medium weight loads) where a high torque 500:1 motor(designed to handle heavier slide rooms), is what should have been installed to move the weight. Lippert makes 2 speeds for this particular system and Thor chose the one that cost the least ($324 vs $400+ per motor. These are genuine Lippert parts prices, there are cheap knockoffs available.). We think we’re going to replace the 300 with 500 in the future, maybe. I’ll explain later.
There will be two of these motors, one for each slide, they are located at the top of the slide outs. The motors don’t carry the weight, so that’s why they worked as long as they did for us, we think. The motors turn a spindle which makes b,c,d (diagram below) move the room. Spindle indicated by red arrow:
As a former mechanical engineer, this is an elegant, yet inappropriate system for the work it’s being asked to do. I would have never done this to an end user.
With our slide system we eventually discovered the problem could have been any or all of three things. 1. The controller. 2. The motor 3. The wire/motor harness.
How did we determine it was the motor?
We found the controller to be an invaluable piece in the equation.
Where’s the controller? In our case it was on the side wall in the storage compartment below the failed slide.
Oh, don’t let the videos online let you think you can manually override and just push the slide in as the instructions on the controller indicate. In our case, not possible. Because of the kitchen being in the slide it was far too heavy for two people to push in. And another tidbit, if the motors are not in sync, manual override won’t work. This also took many frustrating hours to discover. You’re welcome.
But back to troubleshooting, if there’s a problem, those “status LEDs” (upper left on controller) will flash a combo of green and red. Green is on the left.
In our case it was 1 green, 8 reds meaning motor 1, error/fault 8.
They say it’s rare the controller will fail, so we were counting on the error output to be right. It was.
8 is the most common error, and “wire short” is misleading. It really means one of these three things, realized after hours spent on the internet reading.
- Hall sensor failure.
- Bad motor.
- Motor harness could have a broken wire.
The top left is the new motor. Top right is a hall sensor, which can be replaced if you’re so inclined. We didn’t see that effort being worthwhile.
Bottom left is how the motor looks under the plastic cover. The assembly sequence, bottom up, motor, hall sensor, magnet.
See the round thing with the white circle bottom right? That’s the magnet from our failed motor. With ours, it had fallen out of the motor cap and the hall sensor had self destructed.
The photo on the left shows where the plastic piece on top of of the motor had separated exposing the magnet and hall sensor to destruction. The photo on the right is the new motor.
Failed motor with destroyed hall sensor:
The best advice we got was to not remove the motor until we had the new one in hand. Why? Because orientation of the motor is essential. The new one has to go in exactly how the old one was positioned. This took quite some time to get right. The videos showing that you just pop it in are misleading. If you don’t get it just right there will be catastrophic failure in the near future, this from a guy on the internet describing what happened to him because he just popped it in without getting orientation right. The other thing that is crucial before you say good to go after the new motor is installed is the resyncing process to get the motors in sync.
Over 70 RV brands use the Schwintek slide-out system from Lippert, and a slide-out can get out of sync. This happens when the two sides are not matching up when fully retracted or fully extended. See my notes on how to do this below.
How did we know which motor to get with it still installed? The controller model determines that. A knowledgeable parts person should be able to help with that, it can also be found online using the controller model in your search.
We found our motor locally, but Rvupgrades has saved our bacon more than once: Lippert 236575 Schwintek Slide-Out Motor (IG-42, 10 mm) – 22 RPM Output | RVupgrades
We’re not sure the motor at rvupgrades was genuine Lippert judging from the price.
They ship overnight, but in this case it was a Friday and they couldn’t guarantee a Saturday delivery. Our local RV dealer had the actual Lippert replacement motor. It was $324.
You’ll find many videos online showing how to get to the slide motors from the outside, with our Thor, they were only accessible from the inside. That took hours to discover mainly because all the stuff online showed access from outside and we just couldn’t see how that was possible. It also wasn’t obvious from inside either because of the trim on the slide:
In videos they show moving exterior rubber seals back and popping off a metal cover. Not in our case. The left photo is the location of the failed motor, motor 1 which was behind a slide trim piece. The slide is about 1/3 retracted and the trim had been removed. God help us if we ever need access to motor 2, it’s behind the kitchen cabinet behind the slide where maybe, if the slide were fully retracted, maybe it could be accessed, photo on the right.
Did designers ever consider end users?
In studying the problem, we don’t really see where it could be accessible from outside but we’ll explore that at a future time. But hopefully that won’t become an issue anytime soon. Or if it does, in the driveway, in April when we get back where we’ll have the whole summer to resolve it. That’s when we’d upgrade from a 300:1 to a 500:1 motor.
Hope this helps someone!
===========
Some useful Lippert videos
Schwintek Slide Videos
Manual for SCHWINTEK IN-WALL SLIDEOUT SYSTEM:
In-Wall® Slide-Out | Lippert Customer Care Center
How do you fix and adjust an RV slide-out that is out of sync? Syncing the slides.
The way to retime the Schwintek slide system is simple. You go to the switch and depress the out button until the slide out fully extends. You then depress the in button and bring the slide in 8 to 10 inches. You then repeat this process a minimum of three times until the system fully retimes. The way you’ll know the system has retimed is because both sides will extend or retract at the same time. You’ll hear the motors stop at the same time, not one after the other. If you hear them stop one after the other, they are not yet synced.
The reason we need to run the system in and out three times is to give the system an opportunity to re-sync itself. The Schwintek slide system has two motors that count revolutions,,that’s your hall sensor at work. This is what keeps the system in sync, or parallel. When the system is not fully extended or fully retracted each and every time, the controller loses its zero point. When we run the system in and out three times, it allows that controller to find the zero point.
When you extend or retract the system, at the end of the stroke, you want to stay on the switch for approximately three to five seconds to assure that the controller is able to recognize the zero point.
