Awning on 2018 AI Extension Fail

[carpenc]

Hi, my awning has worked fine until today. It won’t extend. We had super heavy rains all day and night yesterday if that makes any difference. BUT . I had closed the awning the night before the rains. I’ve looked at the video re how to wind it up manually but find nothing helpful so far for the reverse.
The last few times I had the awning out it made a squealing sound the further out it got but it worked. It even brought itself in one day when the winds hit high.
Should I try to manually extend it a bit? Any ideas?

[primepower]

I would spray some white lithium grease or other dry lubricant on the awning extensions to help it.

[carpenc]

Originally Posted by primepower

I would spray some white lithium grease or other dry lubricant on the awning extensions to help it.

Will do, thank you!

[Tronadora]

I doubt you need to grease your extending arms. Your Interstate awning (unlike AS trailers) is under a strong spring load and wants to extend. If it weren't for the motor and gearbox holding it back it would fling out violently. If the gearbox fails, it will fling out violently. This happened to my Fiamma at 65mph. It became like a sail up over the rig and shoved me into the oncoming lane a little bit.

Maybe the motor fuse is blown. Maybe there is something wrong with the limit switch that cuts power to the motor.

Word of caution: if your motorized awning gears sound like they are skipping/clunking then you are getting close to a failure that could become catastrophic and you should stop using it. In that situation you should wrap the awning closed with a couple of 24" Velcro Cinch straps to prevent accidental deployment. After my second motorized awning failure, I switched to a manual crank model. Buy the straps from computercablestore.com now so you have them if you ever need them.

[primepower]

I had trouble with mine, simply spraying some dry lube fixed the problem. May not be your solution, but easy to try.

[carpenc]

Originally Posted by Tronadora

I doubt you need to grease your extending arms. Your Interstate awning (unlike AS trailers) is under a strong spring load and wants to extend. If it weren't for the motor and gearbox holding it back it would fling out violently. If the gearbox fails, it will fling out violently. This happened to my Fiamma at 65mph. It became like a sail up over the rig and shoved me into the oncoming lane a little bit.

Maybe the motor fuse is blown. Maybe there is something wrong with the limit switch that cuts power to the motor.

Word of caution: if your motorized awning gears sound like they are skipping/clunking then you are getting close to a failure that could become catastrophic and you should stop using it. In that situation you should wrap the awning closed with a couple of 24" Velcro Cinch straps to prevent accidental deployment. After my second motorized awning failure, I switched to a manual crank model. Buy the straps from computercablestore.com now so you have them if you ever need them.

Thanks @Tronadora It’s suddenly working just fine now but it sounds like a great effort when I’m extending it. That said, it sounds less creaky the further out it goes. May be something to do with its desire to “fling out violently” . I’m camping without shade for 2 more months so I’m going to do some praying.