Slide and low DC voltage

[Pjwlk]

Went to winterize 2018 Berkshire 34QS after 2 weeks in storage. Wardrobe slide would not retract more that a few inches when I was finished. I had generator running and gage was showing about 13.5v on house battery. After several failed tries I the put the leveling jack downs just to see if they were workings, they went down ok and I saw that DC volts in house batteries immediately went to 14.5v and the slide came in okay.
My question is: Is it normal for the slide not to operate with less than 14.5 volts? I would think that they should operate on 12v or more. Generator had been running for half an hour and system was on float charge. Does requiring this much voltage to operate indicate a problem?

[CedarCreekWoody]

It sounds like the reserve power stored in the battery was low. Your voltage was high as it was actively trying to restore this reserve. The huge demand of power required when you activate the slide motor reaches deeply into this power reserve to close the slide. It takes some time for the battery charger to replace this stored energy in a depleted battery. Once the battery is recharged the voltage will drop to a maintenance level. What you are seeing is the recharge voltage on a depleted battery.

[Pjwlk]

Thanks you for the great explanation of what is going on. Good to know it is not a problem.

[CHICKDOE]

i basically agree with cedarcreekwoody. it would have been nice to know what the battery voltage was without the generator running. i suspect it was low. you get 12 volt power from two sources; batteries and converter (if you have shore or generator power). but the converter may no put out enough instantaneous amperage needed for a large load such as the slide. the batteries should if they are charged.

it appears that your batteries are getting depleted while in storage. after two weeks they were down. do you have a true battery disconnect on the batteries. if they were fully charged and are disconnected from all parasitic loads, they will stay charged for months.they should have been able to move your slide by themselves.

[Cover Dog]

Instructions with our coach was to always have jacks down and motor running w/emergency brake set before moving slides in or out. Might’ve been some binding with yours and when you put the jacks down it straightened/leveled everything out.

[rvrobocop]

Originally Posted by Cover Dog

Instructions with our coach was to always have jacks down and motor running before moving slides in or out. Might’ve been some binding with yours and when you put the jacks down it straightened/leveled everything out.

Don't have leveling jacks on my rig but was also advised that even if plugged into shore power having the engine running totally changes the slide's motor to power through.

[GoneSouth10]

Originally Posted by Cover Dog

Instructions with our coach was to always have jacks down and motor running before moving slides in or out. Might’ve been some binding with yours and when you put the jacks down it straightened/leveled everything out.

That's odd - We have a 2015 34QS and there is actually a cutoff on the slide motor circuit that prevents the slide from being operated (in or out) while the engine is running. Believe me, this function has caused more than one "pucker" when faced with a totally non-responsive slide before I realized the engine was running . . .
Having the jacks up/down or having the generator running/not running does not affect the slide operation in terms of this cut off feature. Also, I don't know that I've ever had an issue with "low batteries" not having enough juice to operate the slide (in other words, 12.5 V has been more than enough to operate them). I have experienced a little bit of a slow down on maybe the fourth slide after operating them all one after another and not having fully charged batteries.

[dahagen]

Line #10 above says, I can NOT move my slides in or out with the motor running. But I always put my jacks down or up with the engine running. Remember...Jacks go down before slides go out. Then slides in before jacks up.

[GoneSouth10]

Originally Posted by dahagen

Line #10 above says, I can NOT move my slides in or out with the motor running. But I always put my jacks down or up with the engine running. Remember...Jacks go down before slides go out. Then slides in before jacks up.

Agreed that jacks should go down before slides go out - my point was that the jacks up/down doesn't affect the cut off switch to the slide motors . . .

[Pjwlk]

Manual that came with my 2018 34QS says to have ignition switch off for leveling and either gen running or shore power.

For slide operation says to have ignition in acc position and gen running or shore power. Seems to be a lot of different procedures for these operations.