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Newell Gurus
Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. (/showthread.php?tid=7724)


Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - BusNit - 12-05-2023

I have four interior powered roller shades on my coach. They were all working perfectly. Today I had Chester stop by with his crew to install the new awnings and asked me to pull the coach out to the side of the house. I tried to roll up the shades but none of them worked. I checked the fuses and all is good. I know if the marker lights are on, the shades are disabled but everything is off. Shades worked regardless of interior 12v lighting was powered up. About ready to remove them. Any suggestions?

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - Jack Houpe - 12-06-2023

I didn't know this, wonder why they did this? I used my blinds when I'm driving down the road to get the Sun out of my eyes. Maybe this is illegal?

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - folivier - 12-06-2023

On my 2 Newells and Foretravel when the ignition was on the blinds would only come down a set amount to keep from blocking your view. If I wanted them down further I had to stop the engine then move them down further.
Not sure why yours aren't working now Simon.
But it's not fun until they drop down when you're driving through construction on I-20. Happened to me once after leaving Magown's place.

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - HoosierDaddy - 12-06-2023

My side shades work all the time. The front shades were missing when I bought the coach. I installed a manual one that I bought cheap at an RV salvage store. I would try to use an unswitched power source for your shades. I'm sure you have sense enough to not lower them too far while you drive!!!!

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - BusNit - 12-12-2023

I figured out what was happening. Newell ran a ground from the shades on the drivers side shade switchback over to the passenger footwell fuse panel. The fuse panel has three ground posts. One is a stack of grounds, the other is what I thought was grounds but a stack of marker light terminals tied together and the third is the driving lights terminals tied together. At first I thought there were three grounds since when the power was off, all three posts acted as grounds. When the marker lights and other exterior lights were turned on, those two posts to the right (in the pic) were energized.

So I believe in two things that may have happened. 1st is that newell ran the shade ground to the marker lights which when powered up, would no longer become a closed circuit ground for the shades and thus not allowing you to operate shades accidentally at night.

2nd, is newell may have put what they thought as the ground for the shades on the wrong post and not on the actual ground post.

My theory is that when the marker light circuit was off the shades would work by having the ground path flow through the marker light filaments. When the marker lights were on, the same 12v circuit now lost the ground path for the shades thereby acting as a safety cut off for night use. (The shades never worked when the incandescent marker lights were on at night)

When I installed new LED marker lights, I effectively opened the "temporary" ground path since the LED markers do not have filaments.

Unfortunately for me, the black trophy dash material cracked a bit more as I flexed in there to located the shade wiring. It's a freaking mess of wiring that's black taped together and tossed behind the dash. This aspect could have been done better when it was built. I need to figure out what I can use to fill the cracks in the dash. if anyone has ideas on products, let me know.

Anyway, I hope this helps others when figuring out why something doesn't work. I usually troubleshoot electrical issues in my business by finding what was last touched. I would never have thought swapping out the side markers would have lead me to a false ground issue.

In the first pic you can see the three terminal posts with the main grounds on the top left, side marker terminals on the top right where the shade ground was once pinned and the bottom right which is the driving light terminal post. All this repair took was moving the wire from top right to top left post. All is working now.

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - Richard - 12-13-2023

Good find. You are not the first person to misidentify the marker light post as a ground. Many years ago when installing headlight relays, I used the marker light post as the ground for the relay only to experience unexpected results when turning on the headlights. The relay wouldn’t close when using the headlight switch, but if I turned on the marker lights the headlights would come on. I am not as smart as you and it took days to figure out that post was not a ground.

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - Jack Houpe - 12-13-2023

Forest that would be a nightmare while underway.

Glad you got it figured out Simon, all my grounds are green or I should say the majority are green. I will tell you I stuck my head into Steve Magown's Prevost and the wiring and plumbing looked like it was the space shuttle, all the wires are numbered and everything is put in places that you can access.

RE: Roller front windshield blinds not powering up. - folivier - 12-13-2023

Couple things Simon. Black ABS plastic sheets are easy to work with and have a smooth finish on one side and pebbled finish on the other, amazon has plenty to choose from. Easy to bend with a heat gun.
Also for the grounds on a single bolt I changed the regular top nut to a locknut so it wouldn't come loose.