Diagnosing cable slide problems
Sort the call by what the motor does: nothing, runs with no room movement, or moves the room crooked or noisy. Each answer points to a different part of the drive, and most of them are mechanical.
The short version
- No sound: battery, then switch, fuse and breaker, then motor or controller.
- Motor runs, room doesn't: cable detached, chain off the sprocket or caught on a bracket, or a broken shaft key.
- Comes in crooked: a loose or broken cable, a jumped pulley, broken connector screws, or on an XACT, motors that stopped tracking.
- Grinding is something in the jamb pulleys or a cable on the wrong pulley. Squeaking is tension, alignment or a dry corner pulley.
- Norco recall 15V209: chain connector bracket screw heads break off and still look normal.
Room comes in crooked
One corner lags because its cable isn't pulling like the others. BAL's loose-cable list for the Accu-Slide is your checklist: an adjustment nut loose or off, a cable loose from its bracket, a slack drive chain, a broken cable, or a loose standoff. A sag of 1 in or more is BAL's definition of loose.
Look hard at the chain connector brackets. Norco's recall 15V209 replaced the self-tapping screws in the four cable/chain adjusters with 5/8 in x 8-32 machine screws, 8 per slide, because the heads could break off while the screw still looked normal. If any original screw is broken, the bracket gets replaced and the whole room re-tensioned.
On an XACT, crooked can also be the control. If a motor was changed or the load changed a lot and the motors don't track, reset the learned memory (below). Work it from the lagging corner back to the drive.
Binds or pops at the same spot
A room that hangs up at the same point every time has something in the cable path at that point. BAL's list: a standoff out of line kinking the cable, a cable that jumped onto the wrong pulley, or something lodged in the jamb pulleys. Pull the jamb clamp and look.
A cable bent or frayed at a standoff means the standoff was set out of line. Release tension, reposition the standoff, re-adjust, and replace the cable if it's frayed. Loose cables bind too: slack lets the chain catch on a bracket, and BAL's fix is to re-tension, tighten the four jam nuts and put the anti-vibration keepers back on the eight cable nuts.
Motor runs, room doesn't move
Pull the access panel and watch with a helper on the switch. On an Accu-Slide one motor drives both sides, so a key or chain problem on one side moves the room on one side only. That looks like a cable problem until you watch the sprocket.
| What you see | Cause | BAL's fix |
|---|---|---|
| A cable hanging loose at a standoff | Cable detached | Check tension, re-adjust, secure it with the grommet or the screw in the standoff |
| Chain bunched against a connector | Chain caught on a bracket | Adjust tension, tighten the 4 jam nuts, keepers on the 8 cable nuts |
| Chain lying beside the sprocket | Chain off the sprocket | Reseat it, re-adjust, tighten the 4 jam nuts, keepers on the 8 cable nuts |
| Motor spins, sprockets don't | Broken shaft key | Inspect and replace all damaged parts |
Noise
Grinding is the one to stop for. A cable riding the wrong pulley, or a pulley packed with debris, is cutting the cable while you listen.
- Loud grinding, debris: remove the jamb clamp, clear the jamb pulleys, inspect the cable and replace it if frayed
- Loud grinding, jumped cable: loosen the nut, guide the cable back onto its pulley with a screwdriver (two people helps), re-adjust
- Squeaking: cables too tight, brackets out of line, or friction at a pulley or bracket. Adjust, align, lube the corner pulleys
Power, switch and controller
Accu-Slide with no sound at all: BAL's order is battery, then the switch, fuse and breaker, then motor or controller. Measure at the motor leads with someone holding the switch. Voltage at the battery tells you nothing about a bad connection between there and the motor.
XACT gives you more to read. Green LED: the control has power. Red LED: supply under 8.6 V. LEDs out after 5 minutes with no switch input is sleep, not a failure. Hold M1 In or M2 In on the control to run one motor: if it runs from the control but not from the wall switch, it's the wall switch or its wiring. Supply is 12 V through a 30 A self-resetting breaker on 10 AWG, 65 ft of wire total at most.
F.A.S.T. Track uses an auto-programmable controller with a park brake input harness. Confirm what that input is seeing before you condemn the controller, and pull Lippert's service manual for its programming steps.
What each system does at the end of travel
XACT: the control turns each motor off when its side seats, and BAL says holding the switch until it does gives the best seal. If the motors stop tracking after a motor swap or a big change in load, hold M1 In and M2 In together until the red LED flashes. That clears the learned memory and restores factory settings.
Accu-Slide: the service manual doesn't describe a cutoff in the drive. The room stops when it seats and the pulling cables go tight, and BAL warns that cranking against tight cables can over-torque the drive. Don't hold the switch long after the room has seated. F.A.S.T. Track: end of travel is the controller's job, and its specifics are in Lippert's service manual.
On the job
- Ask what the motor does: nothing, runs with no room movement, or moves the room crooked or noisy.
- No sound: battery voltage, then the switch, fuse and breaker, then voltage at the motor leads with the switch held.
- Pull the access panel and watch the drive with a helper on the switch.
- Runs with no movement: look for a detached cable, a chain off or caught, or a broken shaft key.
- Crooked: find the lagging corner and check its cable sag, standoff and connector bracket screws.
- Grinding: stop, pull the jamb clamp and inspect the pulleys and the cable.
- XACT: read the LEDs and run each motor from the control before you blame the wall switch.
- After any repair, re-tension, lock the jam nuts, cycle the room and recheck both seals.
Numbers
- Low voltage indication: red LED below 8.6 V DC (BAL XACT)
- Control sleep: LEDs off after 5 minutes without switch input (BAL XACT)
- Supply: 30 A self-resetting breaker, 10 AWG, 65 ft total wire maximum (BAL XACT)
- Loose cable: sag of 1 in or more (BAL Accu-Slide)
- Recall 15V209 (Norco Accu-Slide, May 2015): 8 connector bracket screws per slide, replaced with 5/8 in x 8-32 machine screws
Shop tip
Watch the drive before you touch anything. With the fascia off and a helper on the switch, ten seconds of watching the sprockets and connectors tells you whether you have a cable, chain or key problem.
Where this comes from
- BAL Accu-Slide System Service Manual (BAL/Norco), Forest River copy: pp. 2 to 4, 14
- BAL XACT Slide with EMFORCE Technology manual: p. 7; XACT user guide 10800064 (10/2020)
- Norco recall 15V209 (NHTSA), Accuslide chain connector bracket screws
- Lippert F.A.S.T. Track parts list (controller and park brake input harness)
Try it on a service call
Put the lesson to work on a hands-on troubleshooting case.