Cranky window shade design

[LHaven]

I've come across a couple of flagrant brain-bubble mechanical design flaws in my 2019. (My favorite has to be that the designers placed the shore cable jack where it gets covered when you attach your license plate, requiring me to find and add a "hinge mount" to the plate.)

Here's one I could use some advice on. On one window, Keystone arranged things so that the window crank, the window shade, and the hard valence mutually interfere (see image). When you want to lower or raise the shade, you can get it past the window crank only if you turn the bottom edge completely sideways, and then you still have to jam it past the bottleneck. (You can see the result of this on the vinyl fabric inside the valence.) I have no doubt that if I have to do this regularly, I will shred the shade in short order.

My first inclination is to see if anybody makes a really low-profile window crank knob. Does anybody have any sources?

Or has anybody addressed this problem in their own rig with a better solution?

[66joej]

Can you cut a bit off the sleeve that goes through the hole to operate the window and use a shorter bolt. This would bring the knob closer to the window.

[LHaven]

Dunno. I suspect if I cut the end off the shaft, I'd lose the molded-in spline.

As a last resort, I guess could remove the bolt altogether, take the knob off completely, and then just manually insert it when I needed to open or close the window (much less frequently than I would need to open or close the shade).

[66joej]

I've had those off and mine has the splines all the way to the knob.

[LHaven]

I've had those off and mine has the splines all the way to the knob.

I finally got around to working on this knob, and there's only enough spline to embrace the tip of the post, about 1/4", so there's no cutting the shaft. I should have expected this, since if there is spline all the way down, there's nothing to stop the collar from grounding and binding at the base of the shaft.

OAL of the current part is about 1 3/8". On the window, the tip of the post is flat even with the inside plane of the window, so I need a part with a shaft around 3/8" to 1/2", plus a knob grip with the shortest rise I can find.

I just ordered an "RV Designer H711" with a half-inch shaft. (I went with the round knob instead of the three-armed because I figured it would wear less on the shade over time.) Let's see how that works.

[Cbrez]

We didn’t have the same issue as you, but for other reasons switched out to MCD Roll Shades for many of our windows. They aren’t cheap, but so easy to operate and they don’t conflict with the window hardware.

[LHaven]

The RV Designer H711 with 1/2" shaft was exactly what I needed. Fits tight to the window, doesn't have pointy bits to snag on, and doesn't obstruct the raising and lowering of the shade. Yeah, I still have to tilt the bottom carrier just a smidge to sneak it by, but nowhere near the old crank that was nearly ripping the shade every time.

Invaluable to the effort was this clever and sturdy little $10 tool (https://www.generaltools.com/five-piece-ratchet-offset-screwdriver-set-with-pass-through-handle) that I don't need very often, but when I need it, nothing else will do. That, and being able to unscrew the bottom end of the hard valance shield to give myself a little more room to work.

It came in especially handy when I discovered that the bolt packaged in with the H711 (the short-stem model) was the long bolt suitable for the H713 long-stem, and I had to take it out again, scrounge up a shorter matching bolt (which wasn't Phillips), and reinstall it. Without the side ratchet, I would have been swearing and sweating.

[roadglide]

Your shad is to tight and waiting for a failure, there is a knob at the bottom of the shade with a screw you can try loosening the string at the knob . It could be the knob is misaligned.

[LHaven]

Actually, I was holding the shade away from the window for the sake of the photograph, so it would be obvious how much room was needed to bypass the knob. It's not normally that tight.