Yet another slide/hydraulic issue [Solved]

[rhailey931]

To start, we have a 2018 Big Horn 3270RL. The bedroom slide is electric and the Kitchen Living room slides are hydraulic. We've got a winter storm coming so we wanted to retract the slides.

Not happening. I checked the leveling jacks since they are hydraulic as well. Again, no go.

In both cases, I could hear the dual polarity solenoid firing for both up and down verifying I have 12v on the control contacts. I checked the voltage on the feed and two supply contacts with the slide switch in neutral. The feed contact showed 10.5v, which is low. Both motor supply contacts were zero as expected. When the slide switch was energized, the feed contact dropped to zero and the motor supply contacts remained at zero.

The battery, with shore power disconnected and the battery disconnects turned off showed 12.8v, and with the disconnects turned on showed 14.2v. The mini breaker between the battery and the solenoid showed 13.4v (battery disconnects on and shore power attached) on the battery side but only 10.5v on the solenoid side.

All voltages are measured with respect to the ground terminal on the solenoid, which was verified as a good ground.

Preliminary conclusions:
1. The battery is good, although there may be an amperage problem that the voltage check didn't detect.
2. The solenoid is most likely good since it is reacting when the leveler and/or slide switches are activated. If the solenoid were bad, I would expect the voltage to remain at 10.5v on the feed terminal. Since it is dropping, the only option is a break in the solenoid that affects both poles of operation. I don't have a schematic of the internals of this solenoid, but I don't find that likely. Also, if the solenoid was shorting somewhere, I'd expect burned fuses or popped breakers.
3. The most reasonable culprit is the mini breaker with the 3v drop across it. I suspect that almost no current is being carried and the voltaqe I'm measuring is induced or phantom voltage.

We used the manual override to bring the slides in following the Lippert instructions. One thing they didn't mention; we had to press the slide switch first to properly align the hydraulic valves. I nearly burned up a drill finding that out.

I'm more an electronics guy than electrical guy, and I know even less about hydraulics. so here is my question:

Am I right in thinking that the mini breaker is the most likely culprit, or is there something I'm missing?

 

[Terry H]

To test the circuit breaker put a temporary jumper on the terminals of the circuit breaker to see the voltage drop is reduced. The is not an expensive item to replace.

 

[sengli]

Like a lot of other people here, I by passed the stock small mini breakers and wired my hydraulic pump directly to the battery, via a 60 -80 amp re-settable breaker. Now its on its own circuit, and since then have not had any further issues. The mini breakers worked on ours for maybe a year, and then intermittently the front gear would stop half way in or out.

 

[rhailey931]

Let's close this one out. I got a replacement breaker from my local LazyDays and installed it. Bingo! Good slide and leveler action once again.

A big thanks to all the folks who responded not just to my post, but to all the similar ones; your knowledge helped me troubleshoot the problem. Also, for those who are new and not aware of it, there is a directory for manuals and user guides put together by the heartland owners group that contains a ton of helpful information.

I gathered all the manuals that came with my camper, downloaded a few that I didn't have, and put it all into a big orange binder that lives in the cubby over the TV. However, having an electronic resource makes the information easy to find, and, if you use a tablet, easy to carry with you to the inconvenient workspaces where you find broken stuff.

 

[cookie]

The directory that you speak of is located pressing the Tools button located in the menu bar which can be found at the top of each forum page.
A wealth of information.

Peace
Dave