Lippert 6 Point Ground Control Issues

[RobWNY]

First trip out this Spring and encountered issues with the Ground Control system. I knew the "Hitch Height" setting wasn't going to work after removing the battery over the winter but it did raise the 4 rear jacks while leaving the nose where it had been. So I raised the nose where I needed it by using the arrow up button. I hitched up, pressed "Retract All" and we were on our way. When we arrived and set up camp, I raised the nose to unhitch, pulled away from the RV and then used auto level. It worked flawlessly. When we were getting ready to come home, "Hitch Height" didn't work again. Just a red blinking light on the outside control unit. When I looked at the main digital panel, it said "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" So I did that and then had to go into manual mode and raise the rear jacks and then manually raise the front jacks to get hooked up. After hooking up, I pressed "Retract All" and again, got the red blinking light and had to manually raise the jacks. When we got home, I had to do everything manually again and got that same "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" message. I had the 7 pin plug unplugged so it was just the physical attachment to the hitch. Also, I tried using the compass connect leveling feature on my phone and it did nothing no matter what I pushed on my phone. Any ideas on what the problem is?

 

[JKellerJr]

First trip out this Spring and encountered issues with the Ground Control system. I knew the "Hitch Height" setting wasn't going to work after removing the battery over the winter but it did raise the 4 rear jacks while leaving the nose where it had been. So I raised the nose where I needed it by using the arrow up button. I hitched up, pressed "Retract All" and we were on our way. When we arrived and set up camp, I raised the nose to unhitch, pulled away from the RV and then used auto level. It worked flawlessly. When we were getting ready to come home, "Hitch Height" didn't work again. Just a red blinking light on the outside control unit. When I looked at the main digital panel, it said "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" So I did that and then had to go into manual mode and raise the rear jacks and then manually raise the front jacks to get hooked up. After hooking up, I pressed "Retract All" and again, got the red blinking light and had to manually raise the jacks. When we got home, I had to do everything manually again and got that same "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" message. I had the 7 pin plug unplugged so it was just the physical attachment to the hitch. Also, I tried using the compass connect leveling feature on my phone and it did nothing no matter what I pushed on my phone. Any ideas on what the problem is?

The only help I can give is I never use hitch height. I never seem to work right so now I just ignore it. You shouldn't need to raise the rear prior to raising the front. Not sure what the issue is with retract all, that works fine for me.

 

[CoChris-MGRV]

First trip out this Spring and encountered issues with the Ground Control system. I knew the "Hitch Height" setting wasn't going to work after removing the battery over the winter but it did raise the 4 rear jacks while leaving the nose where it had been. So I raised the nose where I needed it by using the arrow up button. I hitched up, pressed "Retract All" and we were on our way. When we arrived and set up camp, I raised the nose to unhitch, pulled away from the RV and then used auto level. It worked flawlessly. When we were getting ready to come home, "Hitch Height" didn't work again. Just a red blinking light on the outside control unit. When I looked at the main digital panel, it said "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" So I did that and then had to go into manual mode and raise the rear jacks and then manually raise the front jacks to get hooked up. After hooking up, I pressed "Retract All" and again, got the red blinking light and had to manually raise the jacks. When we got home, I had to do everything manually again and got that same "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" message. I had the 7 pin plug unplugged so it was just the physical attachment to the hitch. Also, I tried using the compass connect leveling feature on my phone and it did nothing no matter what I pushed on my phone. Any ideas on what the problem is?

I do not know which trailer/system you have, so this may or may not apply to your situation. You should make a signature block for future reference. On our Solitude, "Return to hitch height" (pressing left and right at the same time) returns the nose to the same height it was at when the "Auto Level" was hit. If, and this is a big if, any function is used (manual adjustment, retract all, etc.) after the "Auto level", the hitch height setting is lost. It just flashes the red center light and warns something to the effect "function not available". The same thing happens if the system looses power (i.e. battery disconnect) after hitting Auto Level. Within these limits, "hitch height" function works for us.

Chris

 

[RobWNY]

Thanks for the input. I thought I had things pretty well understood with the system but apparently I don't. I'm going to have to do some more reading and video watching.

 

[J Maguire]

First trip out this Spring and encountered issues with the Ground Control system. I knew the "Hitch Height" setting wasn't going to work after removing the battery over the winter but it did raise the 4 rear jacks while leaving the nose where it had been. So I raised the nose where I needed it by using the arrow up button. I hitched up, pressed "Retract All" and we were on our way. When we arrived and set up camp, I raised the nose to unhitch, pulled away from the RV and then used auto level. It worked flawlessly. When we were getting ready to come home, "Hitch Height" didn't work again. Just a red blinking light on the outside control unit. When I looked at the main digital panel, it said "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" So I did that and then had to go into manual mode and raise the rear jacks and then manually raise the front jacks to get hooked up. After hooking up, I pressed "Retract All" and again, got the red blinking light and had to manually raise the jacks. When we got home, I had to do everything manually again and got that same "Vehicle in Motion Some features disabled Press OK to continue" message. I had the 7 pin plug unplugged so it was just the physical attachment to the hitch. Also, I tried using the compass connect leveling feature on my phone and it did nothing no matter what I pushed on my phone. Any ideas on what the problem is?

I really enjoy the automatic hitch height option but as stated nothing else can be pushed after auto leveling or it's lost. It's a nice feature that can work well for you once it's working correctly and correctly approached. Goodluck.

 

[RobWNY]

So is "hitch Height" just the height the system records as the height of the front landing gear right before pushing "Auto Level" provided the nose is higher than the rest of the RV at the time "Auto Level" is used? What I mean is, there doesn't have to be any physical disconnection of the wiring for the nose height to be recorded by the Ground Control system. It's just whatever the height of the front is gets recorded provided it's higher than the rest of the rig. Do I understand that right?

 

[RobWNY]

You should make a signature block for future reference.Chris

Hopefully I did the Signature block correct.

 

[J Maguire]

So is "hitch Height" just the height the system records as the height of the front landing gear right before pushing "Auto Level" provided the nose is higher than the rest of the RV at the time "Auto Level" is used? What I mean is, there doesn't have to be any physical disconnection of the wiring for the nose height to be recorded by the Ground Control system. It's just whatever the height of the front is gets recorded provided it's higher than the rest of the rig. Do I understand that right?

Essentially, that's how we operate our system. We unhitch from the truck, push autolevel, then after camping, we push hitch height and hitching height is returned; as stated earlier, if we make adjustments after auto level it's lost though...

 

[RobWNY]

Thank you J Maguire

 

[geotex1]

Download the Lippert app and you will have faster, easier access to the manuals for the Ground Control 3.

Clear all of the errors and reset the zero point.

New time you unhitch, make sure the unit is nose high based on the DISPLAY and not eyeballing - many folks actually cannot discern what's level or not.

Auto-level.

Make no manual adjustments after leveling - you can bump auto-level again if you have some settlement/compaction of the ground under the jack feet.

When you're ready to go, Auto reconnect and it will return it to the height you unhitched it.

The height the unit was unhitched at is stored in volatile memory and is wiped readily, and does require a minimum voltage that is below the threshold that boondockers often work by for the house battery levels, especially those running lithium. So, keep that in mind.

Also, any time you remove the power to the GC3 brain, you really need to reset zero. This is something the Lippert manuals really should stress but they don't, but if you talk to the engineers or former technical manager (who actually now works at GD) they'll tell you it's a must.

 

[RobWNY]

Download the Lippert app and you will have faster, easier access to the manuals for the Ground Control 3.

Clear all of the errors and reset the zero point.

New time you unhitch, make sure the unit is nose high based on the DISPLAY and not eyeballing - many folks actually cannot discern what's level or not.

Auto-level.

Make no manual adjustments after leveling - you can bump auto-level again if you have some settlement/compaction of the ground under the jack feet.

When you're ready to go, Auto reconnect and it will return it to the height you unhitched it.

The height the unit was unhitched at is stored in volatile memory and is wiped readily, and does require a minimum voltage that is below the threshold that boondockers often work by for the house battery levels, especially those running lithium. So, keep that in mind.

Also, any time you remove the power to the GC3 brain, you really need to reset zero. This is something the Lippert manuals really should stress but they don't, but if you talk to the engineers or former technical manager (who actually now works at GD) they'll tell you it's a must.

Thank you Rob. I'll download those manuals and do the zero reset so I'm starting with a fresh slate.

 

[CoChris-MGRV]

So is "hitch Height" just the height the system records as the height of the front landing gear right before pushing "Auto Level" provided the nose is higher than the rest of the RV at the time "Auto Level" is used? What I mean is, there doesn't have to be any physical disconnection of the wiring for the nose height to be recorded by the Ground Control system. It's just whatever the height of the front is gets recorded provided it's higher than the rest of the rig. Do I understand that right?

In short, yes you have it correct. I typically lower the landing gear until there is a slight (1/4"?) gap between lube plate and 5th wheel hitch, unhook, pull truck forward, lower the nose ~2" then hit the Auto Level. This (hopefully) set "hitch height" just a little low for hooking back up (to prevent "high hitching").

You signature block look good. Thank you for adding it. It greatly helps for answering future questions.

Chris