Hydraulic slides and level up not working

Vinny773

Well-known member
Just purchased a 2018 Landmark Oshkosh. I'm home, plugged into 110. Everything was fine. When trying to put in my slides in they wouldn't go in. Electric slide no problems. My Level Up is also not working. I read this issue in the past and I seem to remember it was a reset button by the hydraulic's. Can someone please point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance. Batteries read full. Everything else is working.
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi Vinny,

When you read the battery level while plugged into shore power, you're actually getting the Power Converter output and not necessarily the batteries.

I've attached a couple of pictures to help you locate the breaker with the reset button. There's a row of breakers near the batteries, covered by red rubber boots.
 

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Vinny773

Well-known member
Thank you Dan. I will try it in the Morning. Crosby says hello to Callie and sure misses his play dates with her. Why does this happen that I need to reset the switch? Is there something I'm doing wrong?
 

danemayer

Well-known member
We're not really sure what causes the breaker to trip.

One theory is that when you plug into the shore power receptacle and turn it on, there can be a spike on the power converter, tripping the breaker.

Another theory is that if the batteries are low, the hydraulics motor will try to get the power it needs from the Power Converter (if plugged into shore power). If the motor is drawing more than 50 amps (which they can), it may trip the breaker.

Given how new your trailer is, it's possible it got tripped by the dealer doing work on the rig. The batteries would have been ok until drawn down by running the residential refrigerator while towing. Then when you got home and ran the hydraulics, there wasn't enough power left.

We stayed at the fairgrounds until Monday morning. Callie was depressed that all her friends (people and dogs) were gone. Now we're at Tiger Run in Breckenridge and she's got a whole new world of people and dogs to meet.
 

Vinny773

Well-known member
OK the fix was tapping on the motor with a hammer. There must be a soft spot in the motor. We will call Heartland on Monday to have the motor replaced. This is a brand new unit. No breaker trip, all good with electric system.
 

Jesstruckn/Jesstalkn

Well-known member
I'll jump in
I noticed he said it wasn't working at all. If that reset button was tripped the system would try to work and you'd get the "click-click-click" at the solenoid or it would keep popping the Auto reset breaker going to the level-up solenoid. Both caused by low voltage. So the hammer trick definitely make sense from the symptoms he described. Could be a freak thing and never happen again but I'd have it replaced if they will do it.
 

danemayer

Well-known member
I think Lippert is the point of contact for warranty on the Hydraulics pump, so Heartland may point you to your dealer or to Lippert if you prefer to manage the repair yourself.

For your awareness, when we had a warranty issue with our pump, the dealer tech thought the pump needed to be replaced to fix a leak. Lippert agreed to replace it, but warned that they bench test the pump on return and would charge for the new pump if there was no trouble found or if a simple repair would have corrected the problem. Our dealer tech looked a little harder and found the source of the leak and was able to fix it without replacing the pump.

So Vinny, if the breaker was tripped and the batteries were depleted, and you get a replacement pump anyway on the possibility that there's a motor defect, you could find yourself in a sticky situation with a $1200 part. If Lippert has the same policy today, it might be a good idea to have a case opened at Lippert and see how things unfold.
 

Vinny773

Well-known member
Thanks Dan for the info. My batteries we not low or drained and no breaker was tripped. It was the pump itself as I described. When it was tapped with the hammer everything worked. This is a new Landmark less than a month old. What would you do? Wait for it to happen again or be preventive and have it replaced? The tech said that it may or may not ever happen again. But something did happen and the slides and level up did not work. Why would Lippert give me a hard time or threaten to charge me $1,200.00 if they can't find the problem or recreate it. I had the problem and a service call was $160.00. Maybe Heartland or Lippert being outstanding Companies can pay the service charge.
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Vinny,

Lippert no doubt has concerns about the quality of service techs and they don't want techs guessing their way to the answer by throwing expensive parts at the problem, hoping that fixes it. So back in 2011, in our situation, they were pushing back to see if the dealership would stand behind their diagnosis. The dealer tried to push it back to me and I insisted they do the work to make sure that it really needed a pump. Turned out it didn't.

If you incurred $160 for mobile service, Heartland might reimburse you the $80 diagnostic charge. They require prior approval of the servicer, but you may be able get them to waive the prior approval depending on the circumstances. The travel charge is not reimbursed but it usually a good tradeoff compared to the time and cost to tow to a dealer and drop it off.
 

porthole

Retired
I think Lippert is the point of contact for warranty on the Hydraulics pump, so Heartland may point you to your dealer or to Lippert if you prefer to manage the repair yourself.


And therein lies a problem with the entire RV industry.

Imagine if when your Truck's starter stopped starting you had to contact Nippondenso for a replacement and arrange for your repair on your dime.
 

porthole

Retired
One theory is that when you plug into the shore power receptacle and turn it on, there can be a spike on the power converter, tripping the breaker.

I don't buy this. What kind of spike are you referring to? The breaker trips with over current - heat. If it was possible for a converter to spike the voltage like that, and not be absorbed by the batteries, there would be other problems in the trailer.

Another theory is that if the batteries are low, the hydraulics motor will try to get the power it needs from the Power Converter (if plugged into shore power). If the motor is drawing more than 50 amps (which they can), it may trip the breaker.

It is fairly common knowledge that the 50 amp breakers were being replaced by 80 amp breakers when LevelUp first started showing up in numbers.
For the most part these are cheap breakers. There are significant reasons that these breakers cost about $5 and for example a Blue Seas breaker is $60-$100

The electrical theory guru's seem to be at odds as to whether a 12 volt DC load draws increased amperage as the B+ voltage drops. But there is no doubt that the hydraulic pump can pull a lot of amps when trying to raise a trailer, especially extending two rear jacks simultaneously.
 

Vinny773

Well-known member
Thank you Dan, I really appreciate all your help and knowledge. We will call customer service in the morning. Say hello to Anne and Callie.
 

Vinny773

Well-known member
I agree, that's why we will contact both Heartland and Lippert in the morning. I really hope the tap is sufficient.
 
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