Habitation door step erratic deployment

My 2016 Broadway has been sitting on our drive for 18 months due to the lockdown. I take it for a run every month or so but the habitation area has had no use. Yesterday I pressed the button to lower the step and nothing happened. About a couple of hours later I noticed that it had lowered but I could not raise it although starting the engine triggered the automatic raise. Same thing happened today but it now seems to be working OK.

I have a service in a couple of weeks (for damp warranty purposes) but as this is an intermittent fault I am not sure whether the fault can be rectified. It seems bizarre for the step to operate by itself. Any known issues with this? I wonder whether a low battery voltage could cause the problem? Can the push button trigger a permanent “demand” on the actuator?

Thanks in advance for any information.

I had the same problem on my Inca. Sorted it by liberally spraying the step mechanism and connected electrics.

Petesymphony wrote:I had the same problem on my Inca. Sorted it by liberally spraying the step mechanism and connected electrics.

WD40?

BornAgain wrote:My 2016 Broadway has been sitting on our drive for 18 months due to the lockdown. I take it for a run every month or so but the habitation area has had no use. Yesterday I pressed the button to lower the step and nothing happened. About a couple of hours later I noticed that it had lowered but I could not raise it although starting the engine triggered the automatic raise. Same thing happened today but it now seems to be working OK.

I have a service in a couple of weeks (for damp warranty purposes) but as this is an intermittent fault I am not sure whether the fault can be rectified. It seems bizarre for the step to operate by itself. Any known issues with this? I wonder whether a low battery voltage could cause the problem? Can the push button trigger a permanent “demand” on the actuator?

Thanks in advance for any information.

There are people on here I am sure who have worked on the step mechanism I haven't yet. There must be a few electrical contacts involved which may have corroded with lack of use, when it has worked I would give it a series of operations, opens and closes, to clean the contacts. 

It makes me think maybe I should give mine some exercise. I don't use it when I go in and out on the drive with the EC700 being shut down.

I may be helpful to know that when the step is out you can manually close it, as kindly proved to me by a French Deck Hand on the Ferry I last used. He was rather excited by the fact that I was in the driving seat and the step was down. Hand signals and thumbs up from me didn't work, so he shot by the nearside and pushed it up manually, no problems caused.

If its sticking it may give up for a while as there is a thermal switch which resets itself,  that my explain the delayed action you experienced, if it is sticking lubrication of the mechanism would help.

The low battery question, if the battery is low it may not actuate with enough 'umph' it takes a fair bit of Current from the leisure battery.

There you go a message from Petesymphony.   beat me to it.

Edit : Checked mine, its OK but I gave it a few operations and a spray with WD40.

Thanks for that - good to know it can be manually retracted. I started the engine so it retracted which could point to low voltage as the solar panels aren’t as effective at this time of year (especially with snow on them!). If it happens again I will plug in the hook-up and see what happens.

I read somewhere that lubrication is not recommended. It's good to get down and dirty a give the whole mechanism a thorough brushing but wear eye or full face protection.  
Rich..

groundhog wrote:I tend to believe the opposite, if the step gets slow I would simply lubricate it. That said I would not be using WD40 as it is NOT a lubricant, I use an Evinrude grease designed for marine use and find it works and lasts perfectly.

I actually used a 'same as'  WD40 product. Triple QX Maintenance Spray, plenty of it, it cleans and penetrates leaving everything looking like new, it contains a PTFE lubricant.

I had that problem about 7 years ago. The cause was a small push button switch which, as I recall was fitted to the step mechanism just behind the step and on the left side. It's purpose appeared to be to make contact when the step was fully out to change the step direction. That switch was corroded. A/S lubricated it as part of a hab service - luckily I discovered the problem the day before driving down to Willersey. They used a white grease and it hasn't had a problem since.

I am not sure if you’re step is the same as the older one like our Rienza but the biggest problem on ours is the micro switch on the side of the step. Our step would come out but not go back in because the switch stuck in making the step think it was retracted. 
I used silicon grease for ours rather than WD40. It seems to last longer. Also used it on the rear steadies.

Just to follow up on this, once I plugged in the hook-up the step worked fine so it seems likely that low battery voltage was a contributory factor. Thanks for all the comments.

Forgot to mention, I use GI85 spray with PTFE (  made by the WD40 company) well priced and works well

Should read   "GT85"

marconi wrote:

BornAgain wrote:My 2016 Broadway has been sitting on our drive for 18 months due to the lockdown. I take it for a run every month or so but the habitation area has had no use. Yesterday I pressed the button to lower the step and nothing happened. About a couple of hours later I noticed that it had lowered but I could not raise it although starting the engine triggered the automatic raise. Same thing happened today but it now seems to be working OK.

I have a service in a couple of weeks (for damp warranty purposes) but as this is an intermittent fault I am not sure whether the fault can be rectified. It seems bizarre for the step to operate by itself. Any known issues with this? I wonder whether a low battery voltage could cause the problem? Can the push button trigger a permanent “demand” on the actuator?

Thanks in advance for any information.

There are people on here I am sure who have worked on the step mechanism I haven't yet. There must be a few electrical contacts involved which may have corroded with lack of use, when it has worked I would give it a series of operations, opens and closes, to clean the contacts. 

It makes me think maybe I should give mine some exercise. I don't use it when I go in and out on the drive with the EC700 being shut down.

I may be helpful to know that when the step is out you can manually close it, as kindly proved to me by a French Deck Hand on the Ferry I last used. He was rather excited by the fact that I was in the driving seat and the step was down. Hand signals and thumbs up from me didn't work, so he shot by the nearside and pushed it up manually, no problems caused.

If its sticking it may give up for a while as there is a thermal switch which resets itself,  that my explain the delayed action you experienced, if it is sticking lubrication of the mechanism would help.

The low battery question, if the battery is low it may not actuate with enough 'umph' it takes a fair bit of Current from the leisure battery.

There you go a message from Petesymphony.   beat me to it.

Edit : Checked mine, its OK but I gave it a few operations and a spray with WD40.

Why would there be a thermal switch on the step and where is it located? Thanks