Ground control rear jacks

[GWRam]

I have the electric 6pt ground control system 2.0 on our unit. While auto leveling today. Got the dreaded "out of stroke" message. Adjusted unit a little and tried again. "out of stroke" so I retracted the jacks on the low side and put a stack of leveling blocks under the jacks on the low side. 3rd time "out of stroke" Went to retract the rear jacks and held the buttons wrong and only retracted the rear jack on the high side of the unit. The low side of the camper rear jack still extended. When the up hill side rear jack was fully retracted I released the button and realized I had only retracted the uphill side and not both. From that point on I am stuck. Literally. The lowside Rear jack is extended the high side is fully retracted and now the rear jack are dead. Absolutely nothing from either one. No manual rear extend, no manual rear retract, no auto retract rear, nothing. Front left and right no problem. No error messages. Just the rear are dead.

I thought foolishly, no problem I'll just manually crank the rear up. Easy I thought. Lippert does not show a way to retract or extend the electric motor I have in any literature I have found. They show how with the ground control 3.0 and all the hydraulic models but no mention of how on the ground control 2.0. I see I have a rod sticking out with a pin through it that goes into one of the gear housings. I have played with one of the motors where the jack is in the air but I don't know which way to turn the rod and after a half turn either way everything binds up and gets real tight. And since I don't know if this is the correct method or even which way to turn it(I don't want to strip out a gear) I stopped. My unit did not come with a hand crank but a neighbor came over and was going to lend me his, it does fit on the rod, but the space around my motors doesn't provide clearance to turn the handle.

Does anyone know the correct way to manually crank up/down a Lippert electric landing gear with a horizontal motor. Different from the vertical motors. Lippert shows how to do those.
Does anyone have any ideas as to why I lost control electrically of the rear jacks?
The control pad and front jacks have power.
I have checked all the fuses in the gen. bay all seems well. Found that the 40a fuse that is supposed to be between the battery and the module on the ceiling is not installed just a straight hot wire. No other fuses shown in the schematic or that I can find.
Rear gear worked one minute and then not anymore.

Luckily I have 4 days to figure this out.

Any ideas or thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Dave

 

[danemayer]

Hi GWRam,

One thing to try if you haven't already, turn off both shore power and your battery cutoff. Wait about 10 seconds. Turn both back on. That should reset the control "brain" and perhaps you'll get manual controls operating again.

 

[GWRam]

Hi GWRam,

One thing to try if you haven't already, turn off both shore power and your battery cutoff. Wait about 10 seconds. Turn both back on. That should reset the control "brain" and perhaps you'll get manual controls operating again.

I actually thought of that but thought I was grasping at straws. I guess I am in a way. I will give it a try. Thanks

 

[BigJim45]

I actually thought of that but thought I was grasping at straws. I guess I am in a way. I will give it a try. Thanks

Did this work out for you? Let us know in case it happens to others.

 

[JohnDar]

I have the original 4 jack Ground Control system. Besides the main fuse at the battery, there is a bank of smaller ATC fuses in the controller box. On mine, they are visible behind a clear panel. Perhaps yours has them inside the cover. I believe each leg has its own fuse set.


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[GWRam]

I have the original 4 jack Ground Control system. Besides the main fuse at the battery, there is a bank of smaller ATC fuses in the controller box. On mine, they are visible behind a clear panel. Perhaps yours has them inside the cover. I believe each leg has its own fuse set.


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I will look for the fuses in the controller. Having fuses for each motor or set of motors would make sense. I didn't notice any before but I will look closer. I won't be back to campground till late tonight so I will try both suggestions tomorrow.
I will let you know if both or if either one works.
Anyone know of a hand cranking type method to move this type of motor/landing gear?

 

[JohnDar]

The original design has a socket on the top of the motor that will accept a ratchet driver. If yours are mounted horizontally, look on the end of the motor for a rubber plug. It may have a socket under it that you can drive with an electric drill, like the hydraulic slide motor.


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[GWRam]

The original design has a socket on the top of the motor that will accept a ratchet driver. If yours are mounted horizontally, look on the end of the motor for a rubber plug. It may have a socket under it that you can drive with an electric drill, like the hydraulic slide motor.


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I will look for that. Someone uploaded some lippert documents that I had not seen before to the HOM this morning. (Thank You)!! On page 10 they show an manual overide nut that looks like it slides over a half moon shaft. Now I have idea what to look for and with your advice where to start looking. If I find it I just have to figure which way to turn it for up/down. Thanks Again.

 

[TravelTiger]

We have 4-point and had a leg get jammed in the retracted state. It would just click, not extend. I called Lippert and they had someone from Ground Control call me back and walk me through how to un jam the motor. (We had removed the leg, so we could work with it.) Sorry I can't recall exactly what we did, but you might try calling Lippert Tuesday, if you don't have a solution by then.

Also, I thought a feature was that the motors were interchangeable in case one failed. Maybe try swapping a known working one with a failed one?


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[GWRam]

Just a brief update. I can't find a fuse or breaker for the system anywhere yet. a neighbor came by after dinner and suggested checking behind the panel with all the camper switches and looking behind there. There are no controls for the ground control there but it's worth a look. Maybe there will be fuses in the hole.

I removed power from the unit AC/dc for 5 minutes and no changes.

I keep thinking over what I did last before it stopped working. The left rear had just fully retracted. Wondering if there is some sort of safety sensor on the rear which locks them out if one side is all the way up and the other is all or most of the way down. With that thought in mind I am going to attempt to ratchet the rear gear that's all the way up a half inch down or so and then remove AC/dc power. See if that won't clear the sensor.

I did find what I believe to be the nut I should turn to raise/lower the rear leveler leg. Still will be a guess at first which way to turn it. Will try that in the morning.

Quick summary:
No known fuses for Ground Control
No power to rear leveling motors
Ground Control entry pad has power
Front landing gear has power and works

I'll let you know what I find.

Thanks again for all the ideas.


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[GWRam]

Update!!

I searched again, still no fuses or breakers found for ground control system yet. Removing power AC/DC from unit didn't seem to reset anything in the control panel or brain unit.

I then attempted to turn the manual nut they installed on the half moon shaft. Nut is plastic. Plastic nut on steel shaft and steel socket. One piece had to give way, one guess which part, of course plastic nut is in pretty bad shape, Shaft never moved in either direction.

Looked over system parts list and electric schematic in HOM again. Thinking maybe something is locking the system in noticed the rear sensor which plugs into the brain. Unplugged it and turn ground Control on. It was not happy. Error messages and beepin tones. Nothing would work. Plugged rear sensor back into brain slot and turned Control panel on again. Left rear level would now extend and retract in electric Manual mode. Right rear still nothing. So I now have motion on three of the for corners. Decide to lower front landing gear to take weight off right rear. Lowered front only slightly and the I got intermittent movement from right rear. Work for 1-2 seconds and cut out. Lowered front just slightly more and rear left and right are moving again up/down in Manual mode. Haven't tried the auto level which includes the center stabilizers. I Leveled the camper using manual mode on front and rear. It now Shows level on control pad. Control pad had shown right side low and level front to back before and during all this.

I have a list of questions for lipperts support team tomorrow. When I get answers I will post them so others will have the information for future use.

Thanks for all the replies

Dave



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[boatto5er]

Sounds like it has a lockout function when it's in a "severe" out of level situation.


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[GWRam]

I'm thinking something like that. Hoping lippert will let me in on the secret when I talk with them tomorrow. I will pass the secret on to the forum.


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[JohnDar]

Just for the record, this is what my Ground Control "brain" looks like. There is no automatic function with the original system. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good thing.

Two 40A fuses for each leg, as well as the large 40A fuse at the battery. The red control pad is the backup in the event the main remote fails. If the battery in the main remote dies, it can still be plugged into the switch pad that replaced the original jack switch.

Note: this design was before Lippert got their hands on it.

View attachment 31592View attachment 31593

 

[GWRam]

Here is what I have found out from Lippert.

I should have a 40a fuse between battery bus and the brain box for the 6pt ground control. I don't. It is the only fuse that is suppose to be in my system. No fuses for each motor as some other units have.

Not designed to be lowered or raised manually. Electric only. If Motor fails get a new motor. Will have to look into getting a motor for my spare parts bin.

There are no tilt limits built into the brain box that lock out any of the six legs. They couldn't explain why the electric manual control wouldn't work until I lowered front of unit.

I explained in an earlier post here what I tried and what I was doing when things started working again. Can't tell you why it worked, and neither can Lippert.

More questions than answers.
I have an inline fuse to add tomorrow. Any suggestions on type or brand? Will any auto/marine weatherproof fuse work?

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[branson4020]

So where does the wire from the "brain box" connect now? Hardwired to the battery?

 

[GWRam]

Basically, one wire from battery box connects to a bus bar on the wall. The wire from the batt and the wire for the brain box are attached to the bus bar with the same nut.


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[branson4020]

Ya know, that bussbar is actually a row of circuit breakers. Is there an unused one? Maybe somebody just miswired the unit. If not, I'd add the recommended 40A dc breaker right there.

 

[danemayer]

I'd also suggest a 40Amp mini circuit breaker. If there's no spare/empty position on the buss bar, you can mount it to the wood nearby. Run a suitable jumper wire from the battery terminal to the input side of the breaker, and connect the existing wire that goes to the brain to the output side of the breaker. Btw, I don't know if the breakers really care about polarity, but I do notice they're all the same on my buss bar.

 

[GWRam]

The wire is currently connected on the Hot side of the breakers. There is one breaker that does not have anything connected to it. Looking at them the other day I didn't notice any numbers written on them. Do you know where the amp rating is notated on them? If that unused breaker is 40a that would make an easy fix.


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