Slide Out Failure

[pbahlin]

We just finished a 500 mile tow over nasty roads; lots of bouncin' and bangin'. When we started setting up we put out the slides then discovered we had no overhead kitchen lighting. It turns out that our entry light had come apart allowing a wire to chafe through. This blew the lighting fuse as soon as we hit the switch for lights.

In the process of troubleshooting I discovered the slides no longer worked from the switch panel inside the door. This made us go hmmmm since the slides had just worked and there were no other fuses blown.

Here's a tricky thing we learned. The slide pump (for hydraulic slides) is activated by a hefty pair of solenoids mounted on the pump body. These are fused by the infamously too small slow blow fuse. The solenoids are activated by the little low current switch in the switch panel by the door. Guess where the 12 volts comes from to power this switch and ultimately the solenoids? It comes off a tap on the kitchen lighting switch.

So if you ever have a situation where your slides won't operate, check all your lights. The primary activation of the slides, it turns out, is fused by the kitchen lighting circuit. I would even hazard a guess that any of those lighting switches could be the source of the tap for the slides so check them all.

Even more important tip....

Whenever anything goes boom electrically, verify the operation of as many things as possible because you never know how things are related to each other and you might get a valuable clue by checking every circuit.