Slides don't retract

RV: Heartland Landmark Savannah:
Problem: at the end of the camping trip, my three slides did not retract. Plugged power cable into receptacle in back of truck and the slides eventually retracted but not speedily and took several minutes to garner enough power to retract slides. The camper was still plugged up to power and the panel inside camper shows status of full charge. I had the batteries load tested and are in good working order. The battery connections were tight. What else can I evaluate to see where the problem area could be?
Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Feel free to email responses to sjonesrn1@comcast.net .

Hi sjonesrn1,

I assume you have hydraulic slides. The hydraulic pump draws quite a bit of current that flows through a 12V mini-circuit breaker located near the battery. One clue in your description is that you connected the trailer to the truck and eventually got power to the hydraulics pump.

This suggests to me that your batteries were not fully charged at the time, although later, after getting power from the truck on the drive home, they apparently got recharged. While plugged into shore power, the indicator lights reflect output of your power converter, and/or batteries, so that is not a true indication of battery charge unless unplugged.

There is another mini-circuit breaker in between the power converter and the battery. If this breaker trips, the batteries do not get charged by the power converter. This is probably what happened to you. On that breaker, there is a teeny-tiny reset button that needs to be pressed.

If you have a volt meter, try the following:
1. plug into shore power2
2. check the voltage across the battery terminals
3. locate the mini-breaker (see attached picture) and press the reset button (you may have to get out a magnifying glass or feel along the edge of the breaker with your finger)
4. recheck the voltage across the battery terminals.

If the initial voltage reading was less than 13 volts, and the reading after reset was greater than 13 volts, you've confirmed that the mini-breaker was tripped and has been reset.

Our owner-written 12V Block Diagram and Diagnostic Guide explains this in more detail. Also, if you have a residential refrigerator, that guide has a more complete 12V block diagram that more closely reflects your setup.

Thanks Dan. I will check the breakers as shown in the pictures.

sjonesn1,

Sounds like Dan has you taken care of, as that was the exact advice I was going to give you. We had a similar problem and it was indeed one of the relays that Dan depicted, only unfortunately for us, it was not the one with the reset button, so we had to replace the relay itself. It was an easy fix (not as easy as just pushing a reset button) and we were back on the road in no time. Best of luck.

Rod Ditrich

Rod