We are staying for 2 weeks in Northwest and ready to travel south (Santa Barbara, Ca & later Tucson, AZ)
This morning I wanted to retract our slides (Newell 2001 2 hydraulic slides) and floor in front slide dropped off about 3" and that was all.
Went outside to listen for motor sound when my wife pressed the slide switch, just heard two knocks (out of the two square boxes) and there was no sound of the hydrolic pump doing its work.
Tried rear slide, no sound, nothing!
We called local mechanic and he helped to get both of them back but we still don't know what the problem was and why it happened.
We had plenty volts going - 13.8v showed on the panel, plugged into 50 amp, generator on, and house and engine battery merged. We have been having power issues and that was the recommendation from Newell to get them to retract (which had been working).
We turned engine and generator off, waited for the mechanic to come out and see what he can do.
He came and asked us to turn the slide out swich on, front slide retracted; he said he touched all wires for conection. He then checked the two relays make sure voltage was going in, which it was. We then tried to bring in the rear slide, and that one did not respond at all. We checked fuses which were fine.
Few minutes later we tried the rear slide again and it came in.
It looks like we have some kind of problem. Has anyone experienced similar problems? it might be near the cotrol boxes ( two sqare nes ) or two slide in switchs , but why would both of them went bad same time?
We tried the whole process two times just be sure it worked and it did.
In last month we did have problem with the slides. That seemed to be a voltage problem and Newell said plug in to shore line, gen on, engine on, than try it and that worked. There was not enough voltage to slide them in. We tried all those tricks initially today so the voltage was high enough. So now I suspect it wasn't just the voltage but something else is going on.
Wanted to ask if anyone had same problem or if anyone might know what to look for? Could it be the Panel boxes (that is where I heard clicking sounds).
We are heading to OR and found a service center in Central Point in OR. near Medford who works on HWH systems, hope we can get it figured out and fixed, but again wanted to get some input from forum members.
Yes, every time we do that we start engine first ! otherwise we pull in to the campside and liev the engine running , than work the slides. Newell said to do in this order.
It happend us twice that slides did not retract so we kicked in Generator and slides did go it.
Thsi time ramdomly they would not move and later they did ! scary!
I had something similar happen. Went to put out the slides at a campground and nothing. Since I purchased the coach it had been necessary to have the engine running for the sides to operate and I never really understood why it would be interlocked that way. Well, the hydraulic pump was not running when the botton was pushed. I monitored the voltage on the external contactor ( big relay ) that powers the pump and its coil was only getting about 6.6 volts, which was not enough to pickup the relay. The voltage to that area of the coach seemed sufficient at about 12.8. To make a long story shorter, my alternator, unknow to be at the time, had failed on the trip that day and the voltage to the control panel was not as high as it would be with the alternator charging the batteries. For a fix I just wired in a small general purpose replay between the control panel and the contactor and it worked perfectly.
I informed HWH of what happened and asked for a schematic or help in identifying which of the many relays in the controller was not putting out the full 12vdc that the contactor needs. They have been no help what-so-ever saying how busy they are and getting me nothing. My solution is working fine, but I really would like to solve the problem to the very relay that is not working properly. I thought I could identify it by tracing wires and listening, but never found it for sure. Good luck. Russ
Russ White
2016 Winnebago Vista LX 30T
#530 ( Sold )
1999 45' Double Slide - Factory upgrade 2004
(This post was last modified: 10-22-2012, 09:12 PM by RussWhite.)
Russ,
Thaks you for your replay! its seems like we might have same problem ( one relay is sticking or just bad ) I spoke with Mike at Newell and what I said to him ( Service guy wiggled ione of the wires, not sure wchih one ? ) and the slide went back in! he said to trace thet wire since is loos conection! and perhaps that could be the problem , if so I hope I can find it quick!
Problem was , that I had the engine turned on, my wife was holding the switch, and was raining hard out! he than got touch some wire and motor started running! it was happy to se since we had to move out of the side!
I would like to check the relay you have mentioned to for good voltage, again the service man was using light probe and light was on but you can tell if is rightamount of juice right? so using meter would be correct way to do it!
Would you be kind and tell me how to check the relay, I just not skilfull with elctric part of it, I can do most mechanical work . Would i find the ground and positive on one of the wires coming to the relay looks like I have two of them looking at the images , is yours the same set up?
So sorry for my bad English!!!
Here are couple of images of our Newells' hydraulic slide sytem
Has anyone mentioned "All Newells are different" - Ha!
If your problem is basically the same as mine, and I think it may be, it won't be a loose wire. What is happening is the voltage from the HWH slideout controller is just too low to energize the contactor. In my case it was just on the border and if I ran the engine/alternator it worked fine - until the day the alternator quit.
As you will see from the pictures I am posting, you have two contactors where I have only one. Just to be sure why don't you follow the big red wire that is going down and be sure it goes to the hydraulic pump - I think it will. Now, for some reason I do not know, you have two and I have one. Either the designer felt one was not enough to carry the load and just paralleled another ( you can easily see the swithced wires are in parallel ). Or, it was easier to run the pump from two different control systems and each system just got its own contactor. I cannot tell from the pictures, but if the coils are in parallel it is the former, if not, two sources of control.
In my picture you will see the little black cube which is the relay I put in that is easily picked up with the low voltage from the controller, and then switches full voltage to the coil of the contactor and my pump takes off - even with the engine off now like it should.
The two small wires on each of your contactors are the coil of that contactor. If you use a voltmeter and measure the voltage of each coil while the button inside is pushed requesting motion you will have a good idea if you problem is low coil volts like mine was. My voltage was in the 6.X range - just not enough to energize the contactor and get the pump going. Russ
Russ White
2016 Winnebago Vista LX 30T
#530 ( Sold )
1999 45' Double Slide - Factory upgrade 2004
Has anyone mentioned "All Newells are different" - Ha!
If your problem is basically the same as mine, and I think it may be, it won't be a loose wire. What is happening is the voltage from the HWH slideout controller is just too low to energize the contactor. In my case it was just on the border and if I ran the engine/alternator it worked fine - until the day the alternator quit.
As you will see from the pictures I am posting, you have two contactors where I have only one. Just to be sure why don't you follow the big red wire that is going down and be sure it goes to the hydraulic pump - I think it will. Now, for some reason I do not know, you have two and I have one. Either the designer felt one was not enough to carry the load and just paralleled another ( you can easily see the swithced wires are in parallel ). Or, it was easier to run the pump from two different control systems and each system just got its own contactor. I cannot tell from the pictures, but if the coils are in parallel it is the former, if not, two sources of control.
In my picture you will see the little black cube which is the relay I put in that is easily picked up with the low voltage from the controller, and then switches full voltage to the coil of the contactor and my pump takes off - even with the engine off now like it should.
The two small wires on each of your contactors are the coil of that contactor. If you use a voltmeter and measure the voltage of each coil while the button inside is pushed requesting motion you will have a good idea if you problem is low coil volts like mine was. My voltage was in the 6.X range - just not enough to energize the contactor and get the pump going. Russ
Russ,
haha, they all not like for sure!
Les,
Has anyone mentioned "All Newells are different" - Ha!
If your problem is basically the same as mine, and I think it may be, it won't be a loose wire. What is happening is the voltage from the HWH slideout controller is just too low to energize the contactor. In my case it was just on the border and if I ran the engine/alternator it worked fine - until the day the alternator quit.
As you will see from the pictures I am posting, you have two contactors where I have only one. Just to be sure why don't you follow the big red wire that is going down and be sure it goes to the hydraulic pump - I think it will. Now, for some reason I do not know, you have two and I have one. Either the designer felt one was not enough to carry the load and just paralleled another ( you can easily see the swithced wires are in parallel ). Or, it was easier to run the pump from two different control systems and each system just got its own contactor. I cannot tell from the pictures, but if the coils are in parallel it is the former, if not, two sources of control.
In my picture you will see the little black cube which is the relay I put in that is easily picked up with the low voltage from the controller, and then switches full voltage to the coil of the contactor and my pump takes off - even with the engine off now like it should.
The two small wires on each of your contactors are the coil of that contactor. If you use a voltmeter and measure the voltage of each coil while the button inside is pushed requesting motion you will have a good idea if you problem is low coil volts like mine was. My voltage was in the 6.X range - just not enough to energize the contactor and get the pump going. Russ
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Russ,
Thanks for some good tips and toughts on solving thsi problem, I will check the wires for correct voltage.
Also will check the loose wires when we retract the slide next time ( trveling today to Medford aera of Oregon ) will start the engine , have my wife press the switch and if the slide motor wont start , I will check one by one every wire and see if perhaps its the case!
As you noticed I hace two controlers in my system, I looked and the one on the right main wire goes down directly to teh pump motor of the hydraulic system , so its looks like there is loop between two.
