Community Forums

05dutchstar · 10-22-2021, 10:10 AM

Hello everyone and thanks for reading! This might get a little long but please bear with me.
We have a 2005 Dutch Star with a weather pro power awning which has issues. Most of the time when bringing it in it just stops, give it a couple of seconds and it will move again, and then again it might not, or it may work fine.
Well as we are planning on a winter trip I wanted to fix the problem. So I called dometic. I was told that this was a normal sign of a bad Drive assembly. So I purchased a new one (for $450, not cheap!). I still have the same problem. So looking at the wiring schematic and the wiring in the rig I found by bypassing the control box at the box and powering up the motor with an external power source it worked fine. I have checked voltage going into the box which is good at 13.5.
Now dometic tells me I now need a new updated wind sensor. But the awning works the same weather the wind sensor is on or off.
Has anyone run into this?? What are your thoughts?
I’m thinking of bypassing the box with using just a switch or replacing the entire awning assembly with new!!??? Thoughts??

bentjm · 10-22-2021, 02:32 PM

I have a 2005 MADP.

The entire awning will be eye opening expensive.

You control box should have a switch on the side to turn off the wind/cold sensor. Flip that to see if it fixes the problem.

If it does, then it is the sensor.

Also, I really see no problem in bypassing the control box with the caveat that wind could destroy your awning.

jim58 · 10-22-2021, 03:15 PM

I have WeatherPro also. One thing I noticed on mine is if I turn the wind sensor off with the remote I have to hold the button in the entire time to retract. If I let go of the button it will stop. With wind sensor on I only have to to hold the button 3 or 4 seconds and let go, and it will continue retracting on it's own. It's an over-complicated design prone to problems. Even if it worked 100% as advertised, what would happen if you had lights hanging off the awning, or a sun shade hanging, and it DID work correctly? Ooooops there go the lights. Ooooops there goes the sun shade when the awning is retracting in the wind and the sun shade is getting all tangled up in the arms.

As long as you're in the habit of not leaving it out when you leave the RV, I would bypass it and travel on.

Jim58

chindog · 10-22-2021, 04:39 PM

It's unusual that your awning is stopping while bringing it in. When stopping while extending the awning usually indicates a wind sensor issue, but retraction is normally not hampered. I'm attaching the Dometic control box testing bulletin with more information.

PJStough · 10-22-2021, 05:10 PM

We had the problem of the awning stopping on the way in. Eventually, it got to the point it was taking about 15 minutes to get it to come in, this was after shutting off the wind sensor. After looking around and listening to others with the same problem, I was convinced it was the control box itself. They no longer make that control box, but I was able to get one on ebay at a reasonable price. That was about three years ago, and it is still working fine.