geotex1
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2014
- Posts
- 3,693
Sorry for your frustration and troubles, and thank you for your service!
Many of us have had problem with our GDs. If I rattled off the list for our troubles, you sadly would likely feel a lot better about bent axles (likely transporter damage if unit was new); likely loose self-tappers underside because if it was suspension hardware then that was your axle shop forgetting to torque it because you remove axle from the rig to straighten; and, the Schwintek!!
The Schwintek's are not rocket science but do require very good alignment of components, the right components, and synced motors (our complete assembly was replaced). I sincerely have to question the caliber of RV Tech you had working on it because it's no big effort to manually override the controller. Heck, the instructions are right on the controller itself. If the slide is binding, it's also no big deal to disengage the motors so you can push the slide box in by hand. There's one screw accessed from the outside for each motor and then you have to contort a bit to pop them up from the inside and unplug them to get them out of the way. Any legitimate RV Tech has this knowledge, and there should have been no reason to be stranded due to the slide. Moreover, and I am sorry to be so direct, but the unknowledgeable use and troubleshooting of the slide is what caused the damage and chewing up the track (aluminum shavings). The first misbehavior was a symptom of the motors out of sync/time. All should have stopped, the controller checked for error codes, and if ok there a few minutes spent looking up how to resynchronize the motors. Lippert, Grand Design, National RV Training and probably 2 dozen more have videos on doing this, it's in the slide system's manuals, and probably 20-30 forum posts. Caught early, it's easy to fix. Forced and binding, the motor gears tear up the tracks in seconds. Given you have a 2021 model it would not fall under Lippert's recall affecting 2022 models (next model years are already in production by the Fall of each year).
Many of us have had problem with our GDs. If I rattled off the list for our troubles, you sadly would likely feel a lot better about bent axles (likely transporter damage if unit was new); likely loose self-tappers underside because if it was suspension hardware then that was your axle shop forgetting to torque it because you remove axle from the rig to straighten; and, the Schwintek!!
The Schwintek's are not rocket science but do require very good alignment of components, the right components, and synced motors (our complete assembly was replaced). I sincerely have to question the caliber of RV Tech you had working on it because it's no big effort to manually override the controller. Heck, the instructions are right on the controller itself. If the slide is binding, it's also no big deal to disengage the motors so you can push the slide box in by hand. There's one screw accessed from the outside for each motor and then you have to contort a bit to pop them up from the inside and unplug them to get them out of the way. Any legitimate RV Tech has this knowledge, and there should have been no reason to be stranded due to the slide. Moreover, and I am sorry to be so direct, but the unknowledgeable use and troubleshooting of the slide is what caused the damage and chewing up the track (aluminum shavings). The first misbehavior was a symptom of the motors out of sync/time. All should have stopped, the controller checked for error codes, and if ok there a few minutes spent looking up how to resynchronize the motors. Lippert, Grand Design, National RV Training and probably 2 dozen more have videos on doing this, it's in the slide system's manuals, and probably 20-30 forum posts. Caught early, it's easy to fix. Forced and binding, the motor gears tear up the tracks in seconds. Given you have a 2021 model it would not fall under Lippert's recall affecting 2022 models (next model years are already in production by the Fall of each year).
