All during our trip home, we used the driver door most of the time when entering and exiting the motorhome. The steps usually did not want to retract and I did not want to drive with extended steps.
One of the main issues was some damage to the steps and all of the parts. The first thing that must be done is making sure that the step will travel with absolutely NO binding up and down. You do this with the motor disconnected. Lubrication is a necessity. I lubricate mine a couple times each year.
I ordered this new motor Amazon.com: Kwikee RV Step Motor Conversion Kit for A Linkage and it was a plug and play solution for my motorhome. The only issue I had with this kit was the reversal of the Stairs on/off switch. I simply pulled the switch from the wall panel and turned it upside down so that ‘on’ is still ‘on’.
Here is a description of how the stairs work. There are 3 control signals that is uses. A) Door open magnetic switch. B) Ignition on sense. C) Stairs on/off switch.
In order for the stairs to retract (go up from a down position), one of the following conditions must happen. 1) Ignition switch (C) turned on. OR 2) Door (A) is closed while on/off switch (C) is on. If is stops before making it all the way up, there is something binding the movement of the stairs. The simple fix for this is to help the motor push it up using your toe. However this only works from the outside.
Once initiated by one of the above 2 actions the motor will pull the stairs up until it is stopped by an obsticle, binding in the mechanism or cannot go up any further. There is NO electrical limit switch to tell it when to stop. It senses how much current draw the motor needs to keep moving and will stop when the maximum current draw is reached.
In order for the stairs to extend (go down), they must get a door open signal from the magnetic door switch (A). It will respond to this regardless of the other 2 sensors. The stairs will decend until they either hit something (like a curb) or come to the end of their travel. Again with the current sense, they are protected from damage while the stairs are decending.
The contol board senses the input from the switches and contains the current sense circuitry.
Although I replaced the motor and controller, there is still a bind in my stairs that shows up after a period of time without lubricating especially in the cold weather. It was like that when we bought it and I have not been able to straighten it perfectally. Knowing all of the above has helped me keep my sanity.
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