Dometic power awning

[wagon52]

The operation manual for the awning that came with my TT sucks. I known it's not rocket science but there is no mention of whether to tighten the knobs when deployed or leave them loose. I assume that the shocks on it it are to absorb movement in light wind, or is it the shock that collapses when rain accumulates? Or both? No mention on whether I need to keep one side lower or does that not need to be done if it automatically collapses. The more i read about them, the more I get confused. Ok I'm done, just throwing that out there thanks!

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by wagon52

The operation manual for the awning that came with my TT sucks. I known it's not rocket science but there is no mention of whether to tighten the knobs when deployed or leave them loose. I assume that the shocks on it it are to absorb movement in light wind, or is it the shock that collapses when rain accumulates? Or both? No mention on whether I need to keep one side lower or does that not need to be done if it automatically collapses. The more i read about them, the more I get confused. Ok I'm done, just throwing that out there thanks!

Both. The shocks are what keep the awning deployed and taut.

If the awning starts to collect water, one of the shocks will collapse dumping the awning of accumulated water. without the slots there is no way to tell which side of the awning will get "the present."

By snugging the knob of the side you don't want the water on tight fully deployed. The side that you want to dump to should be snugged an inch or two back. A slight tilt to the awning to load that shock a bit more than the other one so it goes first.

[HIDE OUT]

I always tilt one side for run off when I tilt it I tighten it down and leave the other side loose

[Wiscampsin]

Keep the knobs loose when deploying or retracting your awning. The shocks are more of a rain dump feature but will take up a little flapping from the wind. But don't be fooled, if it gets windy pull the awning in. I've seen the damage wind can do to an electric awning. The electric awning we had on our previous camper and our new one both had/have a good pitch so we never had to lower one side to allow the rain to roll off. There are some electric awnings that deploy straight out, no pitch at all. Then you want to lower one side, or both. I'm not a big fan of electric awnings. We had a TT with a manual one once and it was alot less confusing. Plus you could tie it down and it would do fine in a good wind. IMHO the usefullness and functionality of the good old fashion manual awnings far outways the convenience of an electric awning.

[OldCoot]

Our 08 with power awning did not have the adjusting slots and it would also absorb shock loads from the wind. I cut 2" off the motor end support to provide an automatic slope opposite the kitchen door. Fought with Dometic and they finally admitted their design flaw and came out with a free replacement for the lower arm which is now standard on both arms.
BTW, Dometic did send me 2 free lower arms which I gave away.

[wagon52]

All of your answers are what I figured for the most part. Just bugs me that such a big company wouldn't want to include these things in the manual. Maybe job security.

[Herk7769]

The awnings initially did not come with the slots.
The auto dump feature was fail-safe, foolproof, and fully automatic.
Yet they kept getting complaints because folks were used to "tilting" their awnings. So, eager to please they reverse engineered a way to tilt the awning. They even offered to send one arm set for free to anyone who had an old one without the slots. (you could choose which side you wanted to dump from). My manual has the tilt instructions on page 3

[wagon52]

Thanks for the input. I've got it all figured out and I did the garden hose test and it's pretty awesome!

[Herk7769]

Just remember the "Warning" about awnings in general and the power awning specifically.

The accessory slot MUST point towards the camper when the awning is correctly deployed.

If the accessory slot is pointed DOWN it is "over extended" and will cause undue stress on the seams; cause "guttering" and lead to premature failure of the awning material.

This photo is of an over extended awning.

[wagon52]

Thanks Herk!