Lippert Leveling wont respond
We were all packed up and ready to depart yesterday (Sunday) morning at our usual departure time of 9AM. We were leaving Meaher State Park , Mobile AL and headed home to Baton Rouge.
So I went to retract rear leveling jacks and the panel would not turn on. Nothing happened
I called the Lippert emergency on call hot line and received instructions to leave name and number. After an hour or so , I gave up and begin my own trouble shooting. Googled and did not find any good advice. 2 or 3 folks said to replace the fuse, without any destructions or hint where that fuse maybe.
I took down the wood wall panel that the LCI touch panel was attached to and traced the communication cable to the controller which was mounted on the ceiling, on the fwd center line of the basement. -- No Fuse at the touch panel.
I metered the communication cable that runs between the panel and the controller. It has 4 wires: red , black , green and yellow and I found 1.6 volts between red and black, Red/green and Red/yellow. So the panel was getting pwr, but at that point I did not know if it was the correct voltage.
I crawled into the basement and metered the primary pwr and grd wires at the controller which indicated that the controller was getting 13.4 volts.
At this point I was sure that my problem was not a fuse.
I made the decision to manually retract jacks to allow us toget home . I used this video as destructions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=38AFmq1xzTE .
As destructed, I used the 5/16 nut driver attached to my elect drill and began spinning the rear jack as shown in video. But nothing was happening ....jack was not going up or down.
So , I tried the top manual entry point with my 3/8 inch socket drive, nothing.....btw this was impossible until I cut out water barrier and insulation to give enough room to get my 1/2 inch ratchet and 3/8 drive extension into the opening --total clearance is 2 5/8 inches from the jack socket opening and the floor above the jack.
It is now about 2PM and we have extended our reservations for an additional night and are beginning to call mobile RV services. And at 2:09 I get a return call from the on call tech support guy (Don).
We began trouble shooting by "re metering" the comm cable between touch panel and the control with one difference: Don had me to disconnect from shore and solar power....apparently that could matter.
However, I got the same readings as before but now I know (according to Don) that the touch panel comm cable readings should be 5 to 7 volts, not the 1.5 ish that had.
btw do not disconnect the plugs, get readings at the back of the plugs while still connected.
He informed me that I have a bad controller. Ok, so now on to why I can not manually retract the jacks. He says that is nearly impossible that the jacks dont retract using the 5/16 nut driver. He ask me to please try the other side. I did after verifying that I should spin clock wise ( the opposite of what I would think---spin the drill as if you were tightening a nut). Still nothing was happening.....I thought.
I put my finger a the joint of the stationary jack post and the moveable jack and after spinning several seconds i felt the jack barely retracting (1/128th of an inch or less-- the gear ratio must be 1 to 6 million. After several minutes the jack was off the ground, and after several several more minutes the jack was retracted. Grass grows faster than the jacks retract.... A couple hours later all 4 jacks are up and we can leave, although we will return after dark, which is almost a deal breaker.
First piece of advise , check pwr on the back of the touch panel between the red and yellow, it must be 5 to 7 volts. If less than that but above 0, manually retract and get ready to replace controller for $625 (eTrailer) . If voltage is 0 at touch panel, crawl in to basement and check power supply from battery to controller, if normal.....call Lippert, I don't have a clue.
If less than 12 volts start looking for bad connection or bad battery...
I called Lippert again today-Monday, to verify that I need to spend $625 and as it turns out Don was the tech i got. I ask what the normal life of the controller is and he had no idea......
How many folks have had to replace the 3.0 controller
Linear Mode
