2012 Big Country 3690 Kitchen Slide stopped working

We have had our BC for a little less than two years. We are currently at home preparing for a 4 week road trip. We have had to put all 4 slides out and retract them several times. We had a fully charged 12V battery and were hooked up to 15 amp shore power. Yesterday we were working on organizing things. The three slides that operate using hydraulics worked fine. The kitchen slide, which is all electrical, went out part way and stopped. The lights dimmed and there was a click from the battery compartment. I was able to retract the slide using the switch. Since then I have not been able to get anything from the slide. When I try to put it out, I get the click and dimming lights. I even changed the battery to a freshly charged 12V and disconnected and reconnected the shore power. The lights do come back up after the click but the slide does nothing. It seems that this slide is on an auto reset fuse. The question I have, does this seem to be a fuse issue or a low power issue? I have looked through the forums for something similar but haven't found anything (I may have missed it). Any help would be appreciated.

Hi jjmorri999,

The click from the battery compartment sounds like an auto-reset circuit breaker tripping. That in combination with dimming lights suggests that the slide motor is pulling too much power. It may be there's something physically blocking the slide, or a bind, or cables off the pulleys. Or perhaps there's a partial short circuit in the wiring.

On edit, realized it's the kitchen slide, not the bedroom. Not sure where the motor and cables are located.

Also check the battery connections. Sounds like a loose connection.

danemayer said:

Hi jjmorri999,

On edit, realized it's the kitchen slide, not the bedroom. Not sure where the motor and cables are located.

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Dan, the cables are very visible on the BC3690SL kitchen slide when it is in the fully extended position or fully closed position.

The motor for this slide is on top, inside front edge, behind the decorative board. jjmorri999, Hope this helps you located these items. Not sure about the other part of your problem as we have not experienced that.

I'll add to my wife's post and say that the motor is mounted on your inside wall behind the top trim (like she said). From the sounds of it, I would bet one of your cables jumped off a pulley (inside the frame) and is binding, causing the motor to draw too much current.

Fixing an issue like that is beyond the scope of my knowledge. If it is in, at least you can move it. Might have to have a dealer check on it.

Thanks everyone for your comments. They are helping me learn.

It it turns out that the problem was power related. When we got the BC back from the dealer we had a fully charged 105 amp marine battery in the battery compartment. I had the original 90 amp battery, that came with the BC, recharging. We operated the slides several times and ran lights and the vacuum cleaner. That apparently drew down the charge on the 105 amp battery to the point where it wouldn't operate the kitchen slide but because of hydraulics it could operate the other three slides. I replaced the 105 amp battery with the 90 amp battery which was showing fully charged. This didn't solve the problem but I remembered the dealer telling us that if the original battery wasn't completely charged it wouldn't work the kitchen slide. I checked the larger battery and it was showing fully charged. I swapped the batteries again and after waiting a couple of minutes the kitchen slide went out easily.

I guess this shows the importance of maintaining the batteries properly and the importance of keeping them charged.


thanks again!

Jim and Jennifer Morrison
HOC 2460
2012 Big Country 3690
F350 6.7L Diesel

I checked the larger battery and it was showing fully charged. I swapped the batteries again and after waiting a couple of minutes the kitchen slide went out easily.

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You may need to investigate further when convenient. You shouldn't need a fully charged battery to operate the slide. Also, if there's enough power to operate the hydraulics (which probably draws 50 amps), there's probably enough to operate the electric slide.

Thanks - I will have a dealer look at it after our trip.

A battery rated at 90 or 105 amps does not seem correct. I have never seen a 105 amp battery. A 600 or 800 amp would be about right. The ampheres rating is how long a battery will last at a 1 (+ or -) amp draw per hour. 800 amps should last 800 hours. 10 amp draw 80 hours etc,etc. Normally, the battery will not work too well when it gets down to 200-300 amps. A battery with a bad cell may show good until you put a load on it.

Bob&Patty said:

A battery rated at 90 or 105 amps does not seem correct. I have never seen a 105 amp battery. A 600 or 800 amp would be about right. The ampheres rating is how long a battery will last at a 1 (+ or -) amp draw per hour. 800 amps should last 800 hours. 10 amp draw 80 hours etc,etc. Normally, the battery will not work too well when it gets down to 200-300 amps. A battery with a bad cell may show good until you put a load on it.

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Amp Hours is one thing. Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) is another. On your truck, you might find batteries with CCA of 700-800. On your RV, you'll find batteries with various amp hour ratings, but 100 or so is in the ballpark. A group 27 battery that you might find on a Landmark is about 105 Amp Hours. Here's some additional info.

Thanks as I said I am still learning terms. We had an EV24 battery that came with the RV. This had a 20 hour rating of 85 and was what I was calling, mistakenly, the 90 amp battery. We had problems with that battery and replaced it with a DC27 which has a 20 hour rating of 105. This is the one that I was calling the 105 amp battery. The fully charged EV24 wouldn't operate the slide but when I put the fully charged DC27 back in, the slide worked. The hydraulic slides never stopped working. I guess we invest in another group 27 battery so that we have two.

OK all - That wasn't the problem - The slide worked once without a problem and we are back to the same issue - I have checked all the cables and they seem to be fine - Is it possible that the fuse is bad? Is there a manual way toy open the electric slide - I do know how to open the hydraulic slides manually but it is harder to figure out the electric slide.

jjmorri999 said:

Is it possible that the fuse is bad?

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Yes, the 12V mini-circuit breakers can get weak, and probably get a little weaker each time they trip. Replacements are around $10 and can be found at some auto parts stores, or marine stores. The amperage is probably shown on the side of the breaker and you'll want to find one that has the same orientation of mounting tabs.

Here's a picture of a buss bar. Notice that wire diameters vary quite a bit. The larger amperage breakers go with the larger diameter wires.

Loose wire connections can also cause this type of problem.

We talked to Heartland Cust Serv and they sent us a troubleshooting manual. The manual indicated that we should have received a flexible shaft with a 1/4 inch hex end with the RV. Of course we didn't and went to one Depot and got one for $12. We were able to use that to partially open the slide and then were able to use the power to open it the rest of the way. we looked under the slide out and found that one of the metal plated protecting the wheels that the slide rides on was bent up and scraping paint of the bottom of the slide. Not sure it that was enough to stop the slide to begin with but we bent it back down - Slide stays out now until we leave on Saturday.