ATF: Mallard - Slide troubleshooting

I have a 2017 Heartland Mallard IDM29. We went camping this weekend and the slide would not come back in today. Luckily it is at our family's campground so it could stay, but I need to troubleshoot it to fix it, or at the least, figure out how to manually pull the slide in.

When I push the switch to pull the slide in, absolutely nothing happens, not even a click from the switch - in either direction.

I checked the fuse in the fuse panel and it was fine (even switched fuses with another one in the panel). I even switched off shore power and there was no change. I did not have a multi-meter with me to check to see if the switch is getting power (or do any other testing for that matter). The RV is 1.5 hours from my home so I want to do as much research before I return to try and get it going again.

TLR
1 - need help troubleshooting slide not working
2 - need to know how to manually operate the slide

Thanks!

Drew510, you can look in the Tools section in the navigation bar above. Lookup Owners Manuals or/and User Guides.
You will need to identify your brand of slide then find the appropriate manual along with some troubleshooting help.
Or you can click here.
If you don't find what you need circle back here.

Peace
Dave

Cookie (akaDave), that's the problem. I have no idea what brand of slide I have and don't know how to figure that out. I had already looked at the manuals section and unless I am doing something wrong, it is not model specific. Thoughts? Thanks for your help.

It's going to be difficult to troubleshoot without a meter.

Slides are usually powered through 12V DC mini-circuit breakers located near the battery. The breakers are covered by red rubber boots. If the breaker between Power Converter and battery trips, it requires a manual reset. While it's tripped, the battery gets no charge and may be depleted.

With shore power disconnected, do you have interior lights (powered by the battery)? If not, the manual reset breaker is probably tripped.

If that's all ok, then you need at least pull the switch away from the wall carefully and see if all the wires are there. Take a picture on your phone while it's out. Then if a wire comes off, or if you need a switch, you'll have a reference for the wires.

If you have an idea where the slide motor is located, check the wire connections to the motor.

If you can locate the motor, you can usually operate the motors with a drill, using an adapter tool that comes with the trailer.

If you don't know the location of the slide motor, perhaps another Mallard IDM29 owner can chime in, or you could try calling the service dep't at your dealer and ask them, or you could call Heartland Customer Service at 877-262-8032 / 574-262-8030. Have your VIN # ready.

Thanks Dan, that is helpful info. I recall there being three breakers up front (at least two for sure), so I will add them to my check list. I know I still had power when I disconnected the trailer from shore power, but am wondering if one of those breakers were for the slide itself and was tripped.

I've never pulled those boots off, so are they reset by a button on them?

Something interesting and possibly related is after I extended the slide when we got to camp (backstory, the trailer was already in place. I had closed the slide the last time we were there during Memorial Day weekend), I tried adjusting the electric stabilizing jacks and they were not working. I wonder if they may be on the same breaker.

Thanks again Dan!

If anyone else can chime in it would be greatly appreciated.

The stab jacks may also be powered by a breaker. But that one and the slide breaker should be auto reset.

Having 2 failures on things points powered by breakers makes that area a prime suspect.

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I contacted Heartland (FYI - they don't do parts requests over the phone anymore. You have to email HRVParts@heartlandrvs.com) and they are sending me two 30A breakers.

Would still like to know if anyone can tell me where the motor is and how to manually pull the slide in if necessary. I assume it's by the slide on the frame and I'll have to remove some of the board that covers the entire bottom of the trailer.

Welp, must have been the breaker because everything worked fine when I went to the trailer this weekend.

In other news, I don’t see any possible way to operate the slide manually. The motor is located inside the trailer above the slide. Take a look at the pic.


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After some more googling, I found that most manufactures say you have to remove the fascia board on the slide. Many have a center section to make it "easier". What a PITA!!!

drew510 said:

After some more googling, I found that most manufactures say you have to remove the fascia board on the slide. Many have a center section to make it "easier". What a PITA!!!

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Nice job trouble shooting the problem. Seems like you answered a lot of questions for yourself on this thread that may be valuable in the future. I agree that removing the fascia to access the slide is a PITA, but at least it is accessible if needed.

drew510 said:

After some more googling, I found that most manufactures say you have to remove the fascia board on the slide. Many have a center section to make it "easier". What a PITA!!!

Click to expand...

I have to agree completely with your sentiment. The cables on my slide all got loose and I had to pull the WHOLE fascia down to fix it. Not once but three times I think to finally get it completely fixed the way I wanted so they will not loosen again (full locking hardware on ALL pieces of the mechanism).

It is pain to have to work on these. Keep an eye on your cables. If they get really loose you will need to tighten them up. Ours got so loose that the two cables would not slide past each other and hung up the slide coming back in.

Good luck.

John

Domi said:

Keep an eye on your cables. If they get really loose you will need to tighten them up. Ours got so loose that the two cables would not slide past each other and hung up the slide coming back in.

Click to expand...

Thanks John, will do!

So one more update. Finished winterizing the trailer yesterday and went to pull the slide in and it wouldn't budge. Great, here we go again! Went right to the breakers and they were all getting power, so I was a little stumped at first and troubleshooted some other things and came back. Grabbed one of the breakers and discovered the nuts on the posts were loose!!! Tightened them all up and the slide worked great. Sometimes it's the simplest things!