Cable Slides vs Schwintek

[paulag1955]

Can y'all please give me some pros and cons of cable slides vs Schwintek?

[redhooker]

I don’t know about cable slides. But our schwintek bed slide is on it’s 3rd repair in 13 months. You cannot (at least should not) open the slide partially. Must go all the way in and all the way out in one button push with a 5 second hold after it stops. Kind of like having a delicate princess of a slide out. Our last fiver had an under bed motor and never failed in 4 years of hard use. Strong in and strong out. This Lippert junk has us whispering a prayer every time we want to use it.

[xrated]

My new trailer, a Grand Design Momentum 394 has the Schwintek slide for the bedroom full closet, so I don't have a lot of experience or use with it yet. The other slides on the trailer are hydraulic. On my previous trailer, both slides were the cable operated type and they seem to be a little more finicky about whether the trailer is level or not for them to work properly. They are also pretty finicky about the cable "slack" being adjusted correctly....and if it isn't, it sounds like all hell is breaking loose and the slides will jump, vibrate, and generally not be easy to run in or out. Overall, in my opinion, they aren't a bad slide system, but.....they definitely require more attention to detail than say a hydraulic slide. Like I said, not much experience on the Schwintek yet, but I will offer one other piece of advice in regard to the cable system. One of the biggest issues with them is when the trailer manufacturer DOES NOT put rollers under the slide unit! Without rollers, the slide is actually "sliding" along on a nylon/plastic type material and making contact with the bottom of the slide material (I forget what that material is called). Seems incredibly STUPID to me to manufacture a slide room like this. On the other hand, if the manufacturer has built the slide room with rollers for the slide, life will be much better and less stressful for both the slide operation and for you. Some manufacturers do use rollers, some don't.

[redhooker]

X- I’ll take your bumpy noisy working slide and trade you for my stupid electronic won’t even budge because it’s got a fault code slide

[thetravelkids]

Have the Schwintex slide on our 2012 Evergreen Element. Never have had an issue. We have over 85,000 miles on our camper

[Skip426]

At least one major RV manufacturer has stopped using Schwintek due to repeated failure issues .
From visiting the Lippert web site , I believe they even dropped the name Schwintek , with a current reference to " Lippert in wall slide drive " .
Friends traded off their fiver after the third repair of the Schwintek drive on one slide ( $1,700 ) failed after four uses.

[paulag1955]

So is the consensus that I shouldn't reject a trailer because it has cable slides? It looked like a hokey system to me. I admit, though, that I'm not at all mechanically inclined.

[travelingjw]

We have had a Schwintek Slide for almost 3 years with no issues.

[Wrktfsh]

Cable slide on our trailer. Eventually it needed adjusting as it started binding a bit. 10 minutes looking at a YouTube video and the manual I downloaded had me adjusting it without problems. Truth be told I do not like slides on a trailer that bounces down our junk interstates......but I DO like the room once we are onsite. So I’ll put up with the occasional adjustment repair

[thetravelkids]

Originally Posted by Skip426

At least one major RV manufacturer has stopped using Schwintek due to repeated failure issues .

From visiting the Lippert web site , I believe they even dropped the name Schwintek , with a current reference to " Lippert in wall slide drive " .

Friends traded off their fiver after the third repair of the Schwintek drive on one slide ( $1,700 ) failed after four uses.

Is that the fault of the Schwintek mechanism or the repair shop not knowing what they were doing?

[ZaleeRaven]

Plz help, I have a cable slide and it pops when I bring it in or out and will only come in part way and go out part way until I retract it a bit. Do you know what I should do?

[xrated]

Originally Posted by ZaleeRaven

Plz help, I have a cable slide and it pops when I bring it in or out and will only come in part way and go out part way until I retract it a bit. Do you know what I should do?

Most likely it is an adjustment issue. The cable slide mechanism is what they call a "give and take" system. The cables that pull the slide in will be fairly tight when the slide is being brought in. The cables that pull the slide out, have to have a bit of slack in them when this is going on. Of course, the opposite is true when the slide is being extended out.....those cable will be tight as they are pulling the slide out. At the same time, the other cables should have a bit of slack in them. If that description isn't the way yours is, it is out of adjustment. Here is a link for the download of the service manual for the cable slide units. It's not Rocket Science, but if you attempt to do this yourself, make absolutely 100% sure that you understand the theory/operation behind how this works or you could be in worse shape than you are now....

https://norcoind.com/bal/downloads/a...ice-manual.pdf

[paulag1955]

If something goes wrong, are the cable slides easier to service yourself than a Schwintek system?

[shootist]

Lippart will tell you nothing, they only sell assemblies. My friend is building a coach with two 14 foot slides. Lippart said they'll move any amount of weight on rollers. He put them in, they can't handle the weight. Now he's talking to hwh for some undermount hydraulics.