Well crap, typed an answer and got told I wasn't logged in..I was...and lost it. So here we go again.
Support jacks. NO, you do not need them. How do I know...well, last Oct/Nov I had to rebuild the drives on both ends of the Living Area slide on my 2014 Voltage Epic 3800. After the hailstorms here in Southern Colorado I couldn't get an appointment to get it checked out for about 4 months. Nope...headed to Arizona in 2 months. Here we go.
I'm going to believe that yours is a Lippert/Schwintek slide with the drives vertical on each end of the slide. The drive motors are at the top and are a 700 to 1 torque multiplier motor. You can't turn that motor without power, period!
So with the drive motors out of my slide I had to support it with jacks to keep it in.
With the drive motors installed and drive rod connected, the slide is supported by the drive mechanisms...and with the torque multiplier motors the slide stays level without jacks. The motors, near as I can figure, cannot be turned with anything other than 12V DC power.
A little learning on slides.
Lippert videos and instructions tell you to only run the slide out all the way or in all the way. There is a reason for that. The controller monitors the current draw by the two motors. When the controller sees the current spike, as the slide hits the end of travel, it shuts off power to the motors. At the same time, there are two sensors on top of the motor counting the revolutions of the motor via a disk mounted on the end of the rotor.
So, by always running the slide all the way out or all the way in, the controller has good information on the number of revolutions for full travel of the slide. If you don't run the slide all the way out or all the way in...the controller loses the revolution count.
So the videos on YouTube talk about "retiming" a slide by running it all the way out and all the way in, three times. What they don't tell you is that's how the controller gets the revolution count accurate again.
There are slides the during assembly, are not quite square in the wall opening. So the controller will monitor current as the slide comes in and also monitors the motor revolution count. On ours, the motor at the rear of the slide will power down at the same time as the front motor. Then power up and bring the rear of the slide in another half inch. Lippert tells me that happens when one motor current spikes, but the revolution count is not the same at both ends. So the motor with out reaching full revolution count gets shut off, then powers up and runs until the revolution count is correct.
Another recommendation. When you hear the motors power down, keep your finger on the button for another 10 seconds so the Controller has everything it needs!
Tired tonite. Did I answer the questions and provide some learning?
Pirate
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