Slideout stops retracting mid-way
- Thread starter louie365
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thewanderingeight
Well-known member
Before you order another 50amp fuse, you may want to look into upgrading to an 80amp fuse. I saw a video by Changing Lanes on YouTube recently where they stated Lippert said the fuse could be upgraded. You should verify with Lippert before doing so of course.
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danemayer
Well-known member
The complete story on what's wrong and how to fix it is in the Hydraulic Slideout Starts and Stops guide.
BST
Member
I had the same experience. It started over a year period. While on a recent road trip with a one night stop in Lubbock, TX my landing gear failed to come up after I pulled the slideouts in. I had to manually raise them. Stopped at an RV store and picked up a new battery and installed it at our next stop in Carlsbad, NM. All seemed to work well all the way home to Cali. Then I went to Bishop, CA a month later and failure once more. The switch stopped working and I suspected it was the 50A thermal breaker. Went to the town RV supply and picked up a new 50A thermal breaker and r/r’d and all is good. My thought is that the hydraulic pump is drawing to many amps at start up and causing the thermal breaker to go bad to the point that it stops working altogether. Its the bimetal strip inside the thermal breaker that goes bad. I would recommend carrying an extra or two thermal breakers with you as this seems to be a common issue. I think I paid around $10 for mine. I would also recommend getting and understanding how to manually raise/lower your landing gear and extending and retracting your slideouts.
Here's a copy and paste on thermal breakers: "Thermal circuit breakers for equipment (CBE) are particularly suitable for protection of motors and transformers against current overload. The circuit breaker trips when the internal bimetal is deflected. This deflection is caused by current flow that heats the bimetal, resulting in a thermal inertia of the bimetal."
Its an easy change out. The thermal breakers are located near where the battery(s) and hydraulic pump is. Determine what thermal breaker it by following the wire from the pump to the thermal breaker, disconnect the battery, loosen the two nuts that the wires terminate on the breaker and remove them. You may have a copper bus bar that connects to a thermal breaker next to the thermal breaker you are replacing, in that case you may have to remove the bus bar. Also, there may be a screw securing the thermal breaker to the bulkhead that has to be removed.
Here's a copy and paste on thermal breakers: "Thermal circuit breakers for equipment (CBE) are particularly suitable for protection of motors and transformers against current overload. The circuit breaker trips when the internal bimetal is deflected. This deflection is caused by current flow that heats the bimetal, resulting in a thermal inertia of the bimetal."
Its an easy change out. The thermal breakers are located near where the battery(s) and hydraulic pump is. Determine what thermal breaker it by following the wire from the pump to the thermal breaker, disconnect the battery, loosen the two nuts that the wires terminate on the breaker and remove them. You may have a copper bus bar that connects to a thermal breaker next to the thermal breaker you are replacing, in that case you may have to remove the bus bar. Also, there may be a screw securing the thermal breaker to the bulkhead that has to be removed.
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LBR
Well-known member
Ours did the same thing when new, so I bought a 50A breaker from NAPA to replace the appropriate hyd pump breaker. Pulled out the factory installed breaker, and it was ONLY a 30A from factory...oops on them! Put my new 50A in and hasn't missed one slide/landing gear cycle in almost 5 years to date...
MillerTime802
Active Member
Per BST above. Here's the breaker in question. I've had to replace mine on a regular basis and now keep about 5 on-board. This fuse also guards your Leppert auto leveling system. It's quite frustrating. Worked fine for the first 3 years and now I need to replace it about every 3 trips.
I'm contacting Lippert to see if the 12V80amp is okay to install or if they think there's something else causing an over 50amp draw.
I'm contacting Lippert to see if the 12V80amp is okay to install or if they think there's something else causing an over 50amp draw.
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MillerTime802
Active Member
Just reviewed the manuals for Hydraulic Slide Starts and Stops and also 12V Block Diagram & Diagnostics. Very useful. Thank you very much for posting the link.
My batteries are the original ones that came with my Cyclone in 2017. For the first 3 years I had no breaker issues, then it slowly started, and now it happens way too often.......just changed the darn breaker yesterday.
Per the manuals, I may have low battery voltage causing or contributing to my breaker issues. Next thing to check is the pump motor to see if its pulling too many amps, which may also represent be a binding issue with the slides and/or the levelers.......but I don't think I have binding issues.
I'm reluctant to install an 80 amp breaker for fear of burning something up that's more significant.
Comments from the community welcome.
Brad
NYSUPstater
Well-known member
I added a 80A breaker with it's own 6ga(?) wire bolted directly to battery and then wire that came w/ coach from the 80A to pump. Reg breakers still on orig cable from battery. No Problems since.
MillerTime802
Active Member
Let me understand what you did. My wife says I'm a moron so I need a bit of babysitting.
General question: Do you have a copper bus bar connecting all the 12V50amp breakers, or are yours individual breakers with their own hot wires like BST's photo above? Mine has the copper bus bar.
So you isolated the breaker that operates the slides and landing gear from the other breakers (only applicable if you have a copper bus bar) with a direct connection to your battery. Then, upsized the wire leading to the hydraulic pump so it can handle greater amps.....correct? If so, does the manual landing gear switch (used to put the RV on the 5th wheel hitch) still operates correctly? And also the Lippert auto-leveler control panel still works correctly?
I hope that questions/comment was understandable???
Thanks for your response and patience.
NYSUPstater
Well-known member
From the factory: All breakers are on same busbar w/ same wire/cable from battery to it (I have just 1 battery). All the breakers then go to wherever after that and the hyd pump has a wire/cable directly from it's own breaker (50A). I had replaced all the breakers a couple years ago, yet still had issues w/ slide out doing exactly as yours MillerTime. Being frustrated, I asked like yourself as to what to do and below is the result which I hope I explain correctly in words.
1. Bought a 80 breaker
2. Had a co-worker add ends to a 6ga (cannot recall exactly the gauge, but like a car starter cable size) in a 18" length
3. Mounted the 80A breaker near the rest of the breakers on wall.
4. Bolted on one end of 6ga cable to battery post along w/ the factory cable.
5. Bolted other end of 6ga to one post of the 80A breaker
6. After removing the cable from factory 50A breaker for hyd pump, bolted it onto other post of the 80A breaker.
7. Done.
8. 50A breaker disconnected from busbar power.
All other factory breakers were left in tact. So yes, there are 2 cables on the positive post of battery (1 for main buss bar, other for the 80A breaker). Going this route, your by-passing the factory 50A breaker for the pump and now it has it's own "Dedicated" cable & breaker.
If you wish, I cab take a pic tmrw and try to post it (I don't play well w/ computers) as to my set up.
1. Bought a 80 breaker
2. Had a co-worker add ends to a 6ga (cannot recall exactly the gauge, but like a car starter cable size) in a 18" length
3. Mounted the 80A breaker near the rest of the breakers on wall.
4. Bolted on one end of 6ga cable to battery post along w/ the factory cable.
5. Bolted other end of 6ga to one post of the 80A breaker
6. After removing the cable from factory 50A breaker for hyd pump, bolted it onto other post of the 80A breaker.
7. Done.
8. 50A breaker disconnected from busbar power.
All other factory breakers were left in tact. So yes, there are 2 cables on the positive post of battery (1 for main buss bar, other for the 80A breaker). Going this route, your by-passing the factory 50A breaker for the pump and now it has it's own "Dedicated" cable & breaker.
If you wish, I cab take a pic tmrw and try to post it (I don't play well w/ computers) as to my set up.
MillerTime802
Active Member
NYS:
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I understand perfectly. Thank you so much for the time you took in this conversation. Time for me to get to work and get this darn thing fixed for good, ha. I appreciate everyone's posts and guidance. Sometimes it takes a team and I'm glad Heartland gives us that opportunity.
Brad
MillerTime802
Active Member
Question to the community. RE: Conversation above from Danemayer regarding link to Hydraulic Slideout Starts and Stops guide.
Reading through the guides, the issue with blowing the 12V/50Amp breaker when operating the slides and leveling jacks is likely caused by amperage draw above 50 amp, huh right! So, what's causing the excessive amperage. The guides say low voltage in the batteries is one cause and illustrates how so. The other usual cause is the pump motor drawing too many amps.
This weekend I'm checking my 5-year-old batteries for voltage to make sure I don't have too little volts feeding the pump....which apparently results in excessive amperage running through the fuse/breaker.
But here's another thing I want to check, the amperage draw at the pump. My digital voltage meter "may" do this if it does DC current but it's appears to be a pain in the buck-a-roo to do so. I found on Amazon a Fluke 235 Clamp meter that measures DC amperage simply by clamping around one of the wires....but it's like $325 and I want to make sure it does lower voltage/amperage stuff too. It's specification sheet will tell me, but I'm not an electrician and knowledgeable with electrical stuff so I need consultation to know if its the right tool for the job.
Does anyone know how "specifically" I can check amperage draw at the pump motor other than purchasing the Fluke 235 meter?
There are a lot of meter options, but few do DC.
Thank you,
Brad
Reading through the guides, the issue with blowing the 12V/50Amp breaker when operating the slides and leveling jacks is likely caused by amperage draw above 50 amp, huh right! So, what's causing the excessive amperage. The guides say low voltage in the batteries is one cause and illustrates how so. The other usual cause is the pump motor drawing too many amps.
This weekend I'm checking my 5-year-old batteries for voltage to make sure I don't have too little volts feeding the pump....which apparently results in excessive amperage running through the fuse/breaker.
But here's another thing I want to check, the amperage draw at the pump. My digital voltage meter "may" do this if it does DC current but it's appears to be a pain in the buck-a-roo to do so. I found on Amazon a Fluke 235 Clamp meter that measures DC amperage simply by clamping around one of the wires....but it's like $325 and I want to make sure it does lower voltage/amperage stuff too. It's specification sheet will tell me, but I'm not an electrician and knowledgeable with electrical stuff so I need consultation to know if its the right tool for the job.
Does anyone know how "specifically" I can check amperage draw at the pump motor other than purchasing the Fluke 235 meter?
There are a lot of meter options, but few do DC.
Thank you,
Brad
david-steph2018
Well-known member
Here is one at Lowes:
MillerTime802
Active Member
Update on blowing the 12V 50A fuse as it relates to opening/closing my hydraulic operated slides. Please see earlier posts to catch up.....if you're so inclined. Thanks to danemeyer above, he posted a link to a manual from Heartland discussing slideout starts/stops.
In the manual, one of problems with overheating/tripping/and blowing the 12V 50A breaker is due to amp gain caused by poor voltage in your service batteries. I checked the voltage in my batteries (only have 2) which appeared to be pretty good as compared to my truck's battery. So, I dropped the idea the batteries were an issue.........until..........I decided to remove the batteries and take them to AutoZone for testing under a load. These were the original batteries that came with my 2017 Cyclone. Load Test Results: They failed to perform satisfactorily under load!
I purchased (2) new deep cycle batteries of the same amperage as stock, installed them, and tried opening/closing the slides and leveling and parking the landing gear. I did this several times and guess what???????? All worked well without overheating the breaker. Okay, I've seen this before, right! I bought the batteries about 4 months ago and have RV'd numbers of times from within Texas and a few times from Texas to Florida, having absolutely no breaker issues whatsoever!!!
So, in my case, it was the batteries, just as Heartland's manual posted. Problem appears to be totally fixed. I didn't post any results until I had months of use so I could accurately make comment. My current advice? Make sure your batteries are good, all of them, have tight fittings, and there aren't any issues with slide binding.
Changing to 12V 80A breakers??? Personally, knowing what I do now, I'd be very careful allowing up to 80amps into the system. I realize this has successfully worked for others without issue. Not saying that's not a suitable solution, but just check the usual suspects first.
Thanks to all posting on this feed. Your help was incredible, and I learned tons. Currently, RV'ing in the mountains of New Mexico....you just watch.....now that I've posted, when I pack up next week the darn breaker won't hold, haha.
Thanks again to all,
Brad
In the manual, one of problems with overheating/tripping/and blowing the 12V 50A breaker is due to amp gain caused by poor voltage in your service batteries. I checked the voltage in my batteries (only have 2) which appeared to be pretty good as compared to my truck's battery. So, I dropped the idea the batteries were an issue.........until..........I decided to remove the batteries and take them to AutoZone for testing under a load. These were the original batteries that came with my 2017 Cyclone. Load Test Results: They failed to perform satisfactorily under load!
I purchased (2) new deep cycle batteries of the same amperage as stock, installed them, and tried opening/closing the slides and leveling and parking the landing gear. I did this several times and guess what???????? All worked well without overheating the breaker. Okay, I've seen this before, right! I bought the batteries about 4 months ago and have RV'd numbers of times from within Texas and a few times from Texas to Florida, having absolutely no breaker issues whatsoever!!!
So, in my case, it was the batteries, just as Heartland's manual posted. Problem appears to be totally fixed. I didn't post any results until I had months of use so I could accurately make comment. My current advice? Make sure your batteries are good, all of them, have tight fittings, and there aren't any issues with slide binding.
Changing to 12V 80A breakers??? Personally, knowing what I do now, I'd be very careful allowing up to 80amps into the system. I realize this has successfully worked for others without issue. Not saying that's not a suitable solution, but just check the usual suspects first.
Thanks to all posting on this feed. Your help was incredible, and I learned tons. Currently, RV'ing in the mountains of New Mexico....you just watch.....now that I've posted, when I pack up next week the darn breaker won't hold, haha.
Thanks again to all,
Brad
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