Front Jack Burning Switches and HOT wiring

[gwarrick]

Made our first trip with our used camper, 2009 Cyclone 3950. Trailer came off the truck good and lowered the nose to level. Weekend was over so I attempted to raise it back up and after only 4 inches, the jack quit out on me. Removed the switch and swapped for the rear stabilizer jack switch. Worked again but noticed that the wires on the back of the switch are super HOT when lowering the legs under load(raising the trailer up). I stopped every so often to allow the wires to cool so I didn't burn up another switch but this cant be normal, right? The switch works correctly and both up and down actions work just fine so could the motor be over amping? or not powerful enough for the trailer? When I bough it, the shop replaced the motor and switch before hooking up to my truck. Any idea on the correct part number for the switch and motor? Im not taking back to the shop if its something I can fix. Guys where we bought it didn't seem to know their a** from a hole in the ground.
Thanks

 

[danemayer]

Hi gwarrick,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum.

Sounds like there's more than one problem. Something is causing the motor to draw too much current for the switch and wiring. If there were a bind, normally the fuse would blow or the breaker would trip as amperage went up. Instead, yours gets very hot, which suggests that someone may have replaced the 12V in-line fuse or mini-circuit breaker with one of a larger value to keep it from blowing/tripping. Or maybe they just bypassed it.

If you could tell us what type of landing gear you have, electric or hydraulic, someone with a similar configuration can probably shed some light on how it should be set up.

 

[gwarrick]

Thanks Dane. It is an electric jack with a 50amp inline fuse. There are spare 50amp fuses nearby which lead me to believe someone has gone through this before. Was hoping someone could tell me what originally came on it so I could price a new one if needed.
Also found out from the wife that a few of the outlets didn't work this weekend when on shore power, only worked on generator. Obviously these two are not related but something is going wrong here!

 

[wdk450]

If these wires are attached to the switch with spade connectors using crimped fittings, this could be the source of the heat and burning up the switches. The best connections would be with stripped wires under threaded screws. Otherwise, I would recommend soldering the wires DIRECTLY to the switch male spade connectors. The switch should be rated for more than 50 amps DC. If you HAVE to use the female spade connectors, solder the wires to the female connectors, use contact spray on the connecting surfaces, and crimp the female connection points down some so that they make a tighter connection, but you can still get them to go on the male spades.

 

[Gaffer]

Hot electrical connections are almost always due to loose connections.

 

[danemayer]

I'm not positive, but I think the electric landing gear are a Venture system and normally have a 30 amp fuse. Here's a link to the manual. As others have suggested, there may be a loose connection or bad crimp. But I'd also suspect a mechanical bind or lubrication problem causing the motor to draw more power than it's supposed to. If someone was blowing fuses and subbed to 50 amp fuses, that could be part of why wires and switch are hot.

If some outlets work on generator but not on shore power, you may have been missing one leg of shore power. The 50 amp plug carries two hot pins, each supplying 50 amps at 110V. The pedestal may have had a problem, or your power cord might not have been completely locked into place, or you could have a problem on the shore power input side of the automatic transfer switch. If the problem continues, you'll have to investigate those areas.

 

[olcoon]

Our Elk Ridge is a lot lighter than your Cyclone, but ours has 30 amp fuses for the front jacks. I kept blowing fuses, & realized I was raising the jacks too high after I hooked up, and now have a painted line on the jacks so I'll know how far to raise them. This doesn't sound like your problem, just letting you know what size fuses we have on ours.

 

[caissiel]

My unit was 2 years old and I could not raise the landing gears manually.
The gears on top of the jack were binding. The solution is simple. Find the centering plate location and use heavy SS pipe clamp and tight it against the square tubing. You trailer should move up easily using the crank.
On my unit I can lift the trailer and the rear of truck using the crank now.
I have always tested these jacks using the manual crank. A second motor is not the solution. High amperage will only burn something like the motor. On mine the drive anchor broke and that's when I checked the jacks.