Motor Mover

Hiya. You don’t say which mover you have, but I had a similar problem with mine, a Powrtouch Evolution Auto. This might be of some use...

Link

Does this problem happen everywhere? We have problems with ours but only at our storage facility, it cuts out and won't work unless you stand close to actual unit and at first the we thought it might be the battery but it happens after a trip as well when it's fully charged and it's fairly new at under two years. No such problems on a site. 

We were puzzled but we have since found out this occurs with some others, there is mobile phone mast very close and one possible theory is that it is interfering with the remote signal in some way? 

 Hoping that my issue may have been experienced by others. We too had an intermittent fault occur last year when arriving at site.

Our Powrtouch mover would engage but after moving a few feet stopped. This could be remedied by turning the control handset off and on but again after a few feet stopped.

I contacted Portouch and the engineer I spoke to felt it was most likely a fault with the battery. But the only way to check was to use the mover whilst watching the battery meter to check the readings-not too easy as I need to do it when the battery is fully charged which wont be till we have been on site long enough for this to be the case.

Did consider getting a new battery, changed the control battery, but an expensive way to do trial an error.

Seeing Corners comment just wondering if anyone has experienced the same?

There is a possibility that the main feed to the control box might have a bad/loose connection at the battery,the master switch or the control box.Check first that the heavy leads are firmly fitted to the terminals at the battery end.

After contacting Powrtouch I followed their suggested remedy, checking terminals and greasing etc, but still got the same fault.

Its made harder to diagnose as the van is in storage so battery is not fully charged.

We certainly had that problem with our power touch motor mover at our storage compound. There was clearly some sort of radio interference, particularly under certain atmospheric ( high pressure ) conditions. Like you it did it when the battery was fully charged and started working again if you stood close. We get a linked issue now with the tracker in the MH. Again particularly when high atmospheric pressure, as lately, I get a warning that potential jamming has been detected.

Power touch do seem to be susceptible to interference even between units. A couple of times on sites when someone close has been using theirs at the same time, ours has cut out or theirs. As soon as one party stopped using it, the problem went away.

Thanks very much for all replies, I will be going to storage yard to check out all connections and will post results.

That's where my money is, since I had exactly the same situation with the Powrtouch mover on our last van. After a very helpful conversation with Powrtouch, they were looking towards a faulty battery but when I pointed out it was almost brand new, they agreed to send an engineer out to check. He eventually found that the post connecting the negative leads between the two control boxes hadn't been tightened up enough (a common problem according to him) and as soon as it was tightened up again, it was fine. Because of the high current draw, it doesn't take much for resistance to build up and prevent the system working.

Thanks richardandros can you explain where the post connecting the negative leads is, I only have one control box and a hand controller, is this something I could get at to tighten myself.😕

I don't really think I can be as specific as that, since how the wiring is configured will depend on who did the installation. In my case, there was a threaded stud with a flange that allowed it to be screwed into the floor and the negative leads from each control box were connected there - and thence to the negative supply from the battery. The leads were secured with a nut - and it was that, that was loose. It was an AWD motor mover - hence two control boxes - in your case, you will have just one pair of motors and therefore one control box. (By 'control box', I mean the blue rectangular box of tricks with the flashing lights on top that will be secured to the van floor somewhere - not the remote control!)

All I can suggest is that you work your way methodically - from the battery to the control box, to the motors and check that all connections are really tight - using a spanner / socket as necessary.  Don't just assume that if it seems hand-tight - it's OK - because that was the problem with mine.

Hope this helps.