Archive for

Nov 16

Powergear Slideout Repair

The following describes how we fixed our non-working living room slide out on our 2001 SeaView.

The following is not really a “how to”, but rather a detailed description on how we fixed our Powergear slide out. So, if details aren’t your cup of tea, read a book instead.

This is our Living Room slide out in better days

Some background: our Living Room slide out failed to operate during the start of our 2024 Fall RV trip.

When we turned the slide out switch on our RV’s control panel, nothing happened.

Repeated attempts yielded the same results: nada.

So we were forced to manually crank the slide out in and out. A real PITA.

When we returned home after our Fall trip, we started troubleshooting . . .

CHECK FOR OBVIOUS PROBLEMS

We checked for disconnected wires. Nothing obvious.

Checked slide out switch wiring. Nothing obvious here.

Checked slide out controller wiring. Again, nothing obvious.

STUDY THE SLIDE OUT WIRING SCHEMATIC

MEASURE VOLTAGES AND CONTINUITY

Checked that 12 VDC actually has +12 volts and that GND was grounded.

Since MOTOR 1 and MOTOR 2 wires only become active with 12 VDC after the slide out switch it turned, we checked for continuity on the SWITCH IN and SWITCH OUT wires.

And there was no continuity . . . both wires had somehow become disconnected.

So, the next step . . .

RUNNING NEW WIRES

Because running new wiring seemed like a better idea than trying to trace the existing wiring, we ran new wires to the slide out switch (SWITCH IN, SWITCH OUT, and +12 VDC) and new wiring to the slide out motor (MOTOR 1 and MOTOR 2).

New wiring for slide out motor (before “tidying up”)

LONG STORY SHORT: IT WORKED!

Because of cramped spaces, installing the new wiring was a multi-day task. But it ended up working again!

Following are a couple of drawings that might be of interest . . .

These are descriptions of the Powergear 14-1130 slide out controllers used in our RV

Finally, just in case you have to replace the slide out motor itself (in our case it would have been about $700), make sure you get the right motor as there are several models. For example, we checked out a less expensive motor, but ruled it out when we saw that it was only rated for 300 in-lbs of torque.

Our slide out motor is rated for 400 in-lbs of torque

Nov 9

Our Fall Camping Trip

We took a 2-week trip in mid-September (sorry for the late posting).

Anyway, we traveled to several new-to-us locations . . .

Lake McSwain Recreational Area

We spent two nights here arriving on Friday, September 13. This was our first time at Lake McSwain.

Our site . . .

. . . a nice view of a small cove . . .

THE BAD NEWS

Our large living room slide out stopped working. Normally, we turn a switch to activate an electric motor which pulls the slide out in or out. However, now we either had to leave it in all the time and live with some pretty cramped space, or crank the slide in and out by hand . . .

We hand-cranked the slide in and out at every camp site. A real PITA.

Black Oak Casino

Black Oak was only 55 miles from Lake McSwain. Our first time here. We arrived on Sunday, September 15 and left on September 19.

Black Oak had nice showers, laundry, and a restaurant. There was also a walking trail around a large pond.

We were in number 57, another full-hookup site.

Grass Valley RV Park

This was about a 140-mile trip. We arrive on Thursday, September 19, and left on September 22.

This is a brand new park which just opened several weeks before we arrived.

The campground is just outside Grass Valley which has some great restaurants that we discovered when we bought our Sea View RV in 2021 at DeMartini RV, a local dealership.