Power center melt down

[Eavedesian]

Good morning all! I have a 2014 Sunset Trail Reserve 32BH with Lippert slide outs. We are original owners and have never had any issues. It mostly sits so we were getting ready to sell it.

Back in May of last year we had a drunk driver doing 100mph lose control and smashed into the corner of our house directly into the electrical meter and started a fire. Well, we had the camper plugged in and it fried the power center.

Got a new IDENTICAL WFCO (that was installed) with the smart charger installed and now we don't have any power to the slide outs. The battery was at 3.2volts so we got a new starting battery.

Anyways the original paperwork says we have a WFCO Inverter. Any ideawhere it would be located? Also, we have 2 slide outs so any idea where the 2 controllers would be located? Finally, the lights in the ceiling in the living area don't work but they do in the rear BH and the front bedroom.

I would appreciate any advice as to locations of the slide out controllers and inverter. Also, im worried something might have fried up in the ceiling since the ceiling lights dont work. Oh BTW. Is there a manual crank for the BH slides? Electrician by trade so hopefully I should be able to troubleshoot one I find the components.

 

[ghnl]

Wow! You're lucky the RV didn't burn down.

The slide controllers are usually located in the vicinity of the slide but Thor must enjoy putting them in hard to find places. The bedroom slide controller in our ACE motorhome is under the bed. That was the easy to find one. The controller for the main slide I finally found in the storage compartment under the slide. But I had to get my head inside the compartment, turn around and look up to find it.

I get confused with the terms Inverter & Converter. Do you have solar panels? A Converter converts 120V AC to 12V DC, an Inverter converts DC (usually from a battery bank &/or solar panels) to AC.

With the damage shown in your photos I'd wonder if there isn't more (as yet unseen) damage. Do the slide motors work if you power them directly (12VDC)? Could they or the controllers also have been fried?

 

[16ACE27]

Wow, that wreck must have sent 240 volts out to the RV.
You used the word "inverter" when I think you mean CONVERTER which supplies 12+ VDC to the RV's DC buss. I assume when you said "new starter battery" you meant a new battery for the trailer?
The converter is in the bottom of the Power Center. You have to remove the front panel to see it - it is basically an open circuit board.
It sounds like several DC circuits are not working after the Power Center replacement. That could be due to missing or poor connections when the Power Center was changed, or, those circuits were not protected by the fuses and something downstream was also damaged.
So verify the new converter in the new Power Center is charging the battery.
Verify the DC connections on the Power Center fuse board.
Then I think you are right in tracing down the slide controllers.
And the ceiling lights could be a bad switch or maybe the whole string of lights is blown.

Good luck!

 

[Eavedesian]

Wow, that wreck must have sent 240 volts out to the RV.
You used the word "inverter" when I think you mean CONVERTER which supplies 12+ VDC to the RV's DC buss. I assume when you said "new starter battery" you meant a new battery for the trailer?
The converter is in the bottom of the Power Center. You have to remove the front panel to see it - it is basically an open circuit board.
It sounds like several DC circuits are not working after the Power Center replacement. That could be due to missing or poor connections when the Power Center was changed, or, those circuits were not protected by the fuses and something downstream was also damaged.
So verify the new converter in the new Power Center is charging the battery.
Verify the DC connections on the Power Center fuse board.
Then I think you are right in tracing down the slide controllers.
And the ceiling lights could be a bad switch or maybe the whole string of lights is blown.

Good luck!

Yep! All set. I called crossroads and they confirmed no external inverter. I meant inverter because my paperwork showed one and I just wanted to make sure.

I've got the rear bunkhouse in most of the way and then it stops because i think its from the ice. However, its like 7/8 of the way in and I'm tired lol. The living room bunkhouse moves a tad then stops. figure hall effect on one motor is bad but I'm done for today. I know from one video i can pull a wire and bring it in but i don't want to break anything right now. Everything is functioning now, lights in living area, outside lights, etc...

 

[ghnl]

If the motors got out of synch (who knows what power surge might have done), you can try moving the slide in a few inches then out a few inches then in a few more inches and keep repeating that until it finally gets all the way in. Once it does get all the way in hold the retract button down for an additional 5 to 10 seconds to reset the controller.

Make sure both motors are functioning for the above procedure. If only one motor is working it will quickly get way out of whack and could make a bad situation worse.