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I travel with dogs. I am persnickety about leaving them in the box in the summer. Or winter. Or spring. Or fall. I worry about the generator failing, the air conditioning failing and having the motorhome overheat. I put in a temperature alarm system and will cover that in another post. I also put in two (2) Fantastic Fans, both the uppity, expensive, remote controlled jobs. I can set the temperature and if the air fails and the temperature gets too high, both fans will do their thing. All my roof vents have covers. Rain is not an issue. I was having a number of issues with each. Both are out of warranty. I spent too much already to be buying control boards. Get me toolkit. ISSUE ONE – Autoclose at odd times The one fan, the one with the board problem described below, would close at odd times. Even with the rain sensor disconnected it would sometimes close. I put in two kill switches.
One switch was to the power for the whole unit. That I use when parked. I leave the vents open when parked no matter the season. This switch allows me to open and leave it open. Another switch cuts power to the lid lift motor. I can open it, cut power to the lift motor and be assured that the dopey thing won’t close by itself. I still have control over temperature and speed. ISSUE TWO – Board problems One of the fans went goofy. When twelve volt power is removed from the box and then reconnected, the fan came on at top speed. It did not matter if the lid was open or closed. The power switch above fixed that. ISSUE THREE – The lift motor failed to lift The lift motor would spin and spin but not lift the lid. I assumed that it was the lift arm. Silly me.
If you have the lift arm in the picture, you had better get yourself a spare lift arm. As I write this that lift arm can’t be found. It appears to be a COVID-era supply-chain kludge. I managed to find one. I put it in. I then learned the lift arm wasn’t the problem. Poop. At least I have a spare. The issue was an aluminum sleeve between the lift motor and the lift arm. The spindle coming out of the lift motor was very hard metal. The aluminum, not so much. The sleeve was stripped out.
I had a family road trip right around the corner and could not screw around with trying to fix the old motor. I tried to find a new motor which bore part number 6010-05. There ain’t one. They don’t sell them. HOWEVER, go to etrailer and you can find part number 6010-81. That has a 6010-05 motor with a cover you don’t need.
Once the new lift motor was ordered I took the old lift motor, a fairly skookum ball peen hammer and friggin’ wailed on that spindle. The dopey thing was super hard and I didn’t think I was making a difference. When I tried to push the aluminum sleeve back on, it was clear that it was now tight. A vise was all I needed to press-fit the aluminum sleeve back on the motor. I reinstalled the motor into the fan and everything worked great.
When the new motor arrived, I put it safely next to the lift arm I also did not need. ISSUE FOUR On both my fans there are two small boards that came free from their glued-on positions. One was the infrared remote receiver. The IR diode protrudes through the hole. The second board appears to be a DS18B20 temperature sensor that also protrudes through the hole. I used a small piece of Gorilla Tape to reattach them. I should have glued them and will should that tape not hold.
Fixed. Works great. Even with Fantastic Fan’s issues, I would stay with them. That remote and the excellent temperature sensing and tracking gives me a lot of confidence that they are going to keep my dogs cool.
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