Hydraulic AutoLeveler controller...KAPUT !!

Good morning to all......Arrived home from our 5.5 week, 7500 mile tour of the USA on Tuesday evening, with basically no problems at all from the WC. After unloading the WC storage, and taking it to the truck wash, brought it home, going to unhook........pushed the ON button on the LCI autolevel control panel to drop the front landings......zilch....nada.....no indication of power... looked for a fuse...none found in that maze of wiring and hydraulic lines...took off the cover of the panel, thinking maybe water had gotten to the board...nope, dry as a bone...Used test lamp, and I have +12 volts on the cable that hooks to the panel, so no fuse problem. I called my dealers service department....they had no clue, as mine and another were the only hydraulic autolevelers they've ever seen. Said they'd call LCI about it and call back.....in the meantime, I went to the LCI website and looked at their troubleshooting section....kinda hard to understand it all, but did see something about running a wire from +12 post to these 2 tabs....(good thing I remembered to look at it...later)..service dept called back saying they didnt know what it was, and asked if I was still hooked up......duh, YES, how in the heck am I gonna get it off? Told me to bring it down and see if we could figure out how to drop the front landing, but they couldnt get to the problem until the end of August....as they were swamped.....OK, no problem there, as no trip planned until Oct... Took it down, and discussed it with the service tech....made out the warranty form for it, plus the other small things that needed to be repaired...no biggies... then went out to unhook...asked him if they had contacted LCI, and he said NO...good grief....well, told him to bring 2-12" #10 wires with him, as think I know how to drop it........(.again, good thing I had read it online and dementia hadnt taken over yet).....takes 3 hands, but it works...got it unhooked....

Now, just think if this had happen in some campground...!! Dont know about all this new fangled items.....as this has no manual button, etc to activate just incase the control panel malfunctions....just like Hulk Hogan says, "Wata gonna do"..?? I got to thinking about a manual override, and someplace I saw on here, someone has switches mounted to do this, am I correct?? If not, I think by using that scheme I used yesterday, I could manually operate the landings using a DPDT switch for each landing....have to reinvent the wheel maybe, dunno....

Hey, but at least I got the Tankless Water Heater figured out........I think.......!!

Some dealers are rocks.

John and Connie, glad you had a good trip. Really bad that your landing gear wouldn't work. It's a good thing it waited until you got home. Smart thinking to go to the Lippert site. Your dealer should have paid you for telling them how to get it working. I'm assuming that was just a temporary fix.

Tater

Bad experience with hyd jacks from FR. I would run from any hyd jacks put in from FR. Happens when you almost have a head splitting experience. Best of luck with fix. I hope FR can fix it.

Please call this in to Rod Batts at Forest River: 574-206-7609. He'll be able to assist you OR point you in the right direction with Lippert.

We've had very good results with the AutoLevel system with a low incidence of problems or failure. That's why so many of the more expensive RVs are offering this same system -- it's the best leveling system on the market today.

I was just glad it didnt happen in some campground in some isolated spot where I couldnt look at the LCI website...In my opinion, the problem is not with the board itself, but the way the ON/OFF button is mounted....almost like touchscreen...never seen anything like it to tell you the truth, and I've been into electronics for +60 yrs.. The PCB itself is SMT (surface mount technology) but the push button is mounted on the front panel plate, not on the PCB (printed circuit board). It worked fine on my last stop/raise in Utah, but when I got home, zilch.... almost wishing I hadnt gotten the autolevel/TWH unit....they have a "manual/electric" WC on the show floor...too bad I could just trade, but my wife has ours decorated to the hilt with flowers, greenery, curtains.......sheesh!!