Nearly New Powrtouch mover won't work!!

[BigTim]

Hi

I'm beginning to sound like Victor Meldrew "I REALLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!"

I had my Powrtouch HD motor mover fitted to our Bailey Senator Arizona just before Easter. There were immediate issues in that the electronics box had been fitted behind the heater rather than in the bed box as expected. The cables were hanging loose near the back of the heater that would have become hot when in use. P/T promptly sent a fitter the next day who moved the box to the bed box.

We've subsequently used the mover in/out of our drive and on/off pitch for our Easter and Whit breaks - seemed okay.

Today I had taken afternoon off work (a cost of c£50 lost pay) so that I could get the 'van to our dealers for its annual service. Took off Alko Secure and Bulldog hitch lock. Wound up the steadies. Positioned car. Turned on the motor mover - it seemed okay until I tried to use the electric actuator to move the rollers onto the wheels. Counted down the green lights on the remote but then a small red light flashed and nothing happened.

I used my multimeter to check the batter and got a reading of 12.6v - the 110 amp battery was new at Easter. Changed the remote battery. Still no joy so I phoned P/T - they phoned me back because they were busy. Went through the routine with the technical support engineer over the phone. No joy! He said that they would send out an engineer asap. Later got a call from local engineer - earliest appointment next Wednedsay. Phoned P/T again but they said that the above appointment was my best, and only, bet.

I am NOT impressed nearly £1K it cost and not working after 2 trips!!! I suppose it could have been worse we could have been going away on holiday. I've got a really busy weekend coming up and I've just spent 2+ hours unlocking, trying to get the mover to work and, subsequently, locking the caravan.

I've taken the 'van battery out and put it on charge in the garage just to be doubly sure.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

Tim

 

[Clubman1]

This happened to my friend only last week. He had a P/T mover (with accuator) fitted to his Fendt a couple of months ago. All worked well when tested by the fitter. A week later my friend could not get his mover to engage and therefore move his 'van. A couple of hours later we managed to get it to work and he was happy. However last week when preparing to move his 'van off the drive, again the unit failed and I was summoned to help. Everything was checked i/e battery OK etc. But the hand set signals were exactly as you have described. After much head scratching (it was the week end so no access to P/T help line) we discovered that the hand set connections or control panel in 'van appear to have been reversed, when we turnbed the hand set round i.e the hitch logo on the handset becoming the "rear" of the 'van and using the corresponding buttons on the reversed handset everything worked fine. I hope this makes sense and if you do understand my ramblings it may be worth a try. I have an P/T older version with manual engagement and have had no probs during the past 5 years

 

[BigTim]

This happened to my friend only last week. He had a P/T mover (with accuator) fitted to his Fendt a couple of months ago. All worked well when tested by the fitter. A week later my friend could not get his mover to engage and therefore move his 'van. A couple of hours later we managed to get it to work and he was happy. However last week when preparing to move his 'van off the drive, again the unit failed and I was summoned to help. Everything was checked i/e battery OK etc. But the hand set signals were exactly as you have described. After much head scratching (it was the week end so no access to P/T help line) we discovered that the hand set connections or control panel in 'van appear to have been reversed, when we turnbed the hand set round i.e the hitch logo on the handset becoming the "rear" of the 'van and using the corresponding buttons on the reversed handset everything worked fine. I hope this makes sense and if you do understand my ramblings it may be worth a try. I have an P/T older version with manual engagement and have had no probs during the past 5 years

Thanks for that Clubman but tried that withouth success. None of the remote's buttons seem to operate the mover. I don't think the electronic box is receiving the signal from the remote handset.

It looks like I'll be waiting until Wednesday. I'm just hoping I've not bought a "lemon".

Tim

 

[GrahamPonty]

This happened to my friend only last week. He had a P/T mover (with accuator) fitted to his Fendt a couple of months ago. All worked well when tested by the fitter. A week later my friend could not get his mover to engage and therefore move his 'van. A couple of hours later we managed to get it to work and he was happy. However last week when preparing to move his 'van off the drive, again the unit failed and I was summoned to help. Everything was checked i/e battery OK etc. But the hand set signals were exactly as you have described. After much head scratching (it was the week end so no access to P/T help line) we discovered that the hand set connections or control panel in 'van appear to have been reversed, when we turnbed the hand set round i.e the hitch logo on the handset becoming the "rear" of the 'van and using the corresponding buttons on the reversed handset everything worked fine. I hope this makes sense and if you do understand my ramblings it may be worth a try. I have an P/T older version with manual engagement and have had no probs during the past 5 years

Hi Tim,

More often that not it is the battery with not enough charge in it. If the battery is not fully charged it will not work. You say your 110 amp battery was new at Easter, if you have an alarm on your caravan that will drain the battery over a period of weeks.

Charge the battery and try again.

HTH

Regards

Graham (Ponty)

 

[GrahamPonty]

Hi Tim,

More often that not it is the battery with not enough charge in it. If the battery is not fully charged it will not work. You say your 110 amp battery was new at Easter, if you have an alarm on your caravan that will drain the battery over a period of weeks.

Charge the battery and try again.

HTH

Regards

Graham (Ponty)

 

[BigTim]

Hi Tim,

More often that not it is the battery with not enough charge in it. If the battery is not fully charged it will not work. You say your 110 amp battery was new at Easter, if you have an alarm on your caravan that will drain the battery over a period of weeks.

Charge the battery and try again.

HTH

Regards

Graham (Ponty)

Thanks for that Graham.

I will be trying the mover again when the 'van battery has been on charge for a couple of days. I'm not too optimistic however as I was unable to get the rollers to turn even when away from the wheeels (P/T engineer suggested I try that) so there was no load on the motors whatsoever.

 

[Chris_374413356]

Just a quick tip: If the electric engage actuator motor fails remove the rubber cover on the end of the motor and operate on and off the tyre with a 9mm socket and a battery drill.

 

[BigTim]

Thanks for that comment Chris.

I'll bear it in mind for the future but at the moment my remote does not cause ANY of the mover's functions to operate. Not only will it not move the rollers onto the wheels it won't make the rollers rotate, forward or back, even when they're not on the wheels.

 

[Clive-Cardiff]

I found that ours will not work if the battery is down at all. There's some sort of safety cut out built in to cut out the functions.

When this happened to us I found the system will work OK using the remote leads. Now that our new battery has gone through a few charge cycles we dont get this problem

 

[BigTim]

Progress (???) Report!!!

I tested the battery tonight after 72+ hours on charge on my "smart" charger. Multimeter reading 13.7. Put the battery back in the battery box on 'van and tried the motor mover using the remote control. I got exactly the same, NIL, response as I did on Thursday. Actuator didn't work, neither would the rollers turn whilst "off" he tyres.

The battery is an "Energy 110" bought new at Easter time from my tyre dealer.

Looks as though I'll be waiting for the "Powrtouch" agent on Wednesday.

Regards

Tim

 

[Rodone]

The PT remote switches off after only a few seconds of non useand, if you are in sunlight it can be difficult to see whether it is lit or not. This quick isolation is for very good safety reasons, but can be a nuisance non theless

 

[BigTim]

Thanks Rod

However the remote is the only thing that is working!!!!

Thanks anyway

Tim

 

[BigTim]

Thanks for all the input everyone who contributed

Anthony from A1 Caravan Services of Warrington arrived this afternoon. He had 3 unsuccessful attempts at remapping the handset to the electronic box as instructed by P/T. He then fitted a new electronic box and the mover worked fine again.

Tim