Update on entry step non-retraction.

[Stan Simpson]

I ordered new "magnets" from BCS for the coach. Mike in parts sent me Kwikee parts. After I talked to him and sent him pictures, he sent the correct SCS parts.

So, I took the old door system apart and discovered why everyone was chuckling about my comment regarding "bad magnets".  I now know that the magnets are on the door. The switch is on the frame. The magnets in the door are fine. The switch wires, which are encased in a white tube are held by some sort of wax, gel, rubber (?) see picture below, that holds the wires. As you can see, they are double wires, and the bottom one has only 1 lead. The other lead was broken off and I found it in the door frame. The wires are threaded through two holes in the wheel well behind the door frame. Each of the two sets has two wires. I un-taped the temporary switch the tech installed, and found two leads coming out of a loom. Presumably they go to the control board and the ignition (?). If I touch them together, the step works. I have a wiring schematic for the step installation, but I have no clue how to read it. I tried every combination I could think of using alligator clips to connect the leads from the door switch to those two wires coming out of the loom. Nothing worked. I tried each combination with the door closed, and open. The rocker switch inside the panel was set to "on". I don't want to wreck anything. Does anyone have an idea how the two sets of double leads...one for each hole in the door frame....should be connected to those two wires coming out of the loom?

Thanks for your help patience with an "end user". I have learned so much here.

Stan

edit: One half of the new switch that BCS sent included a new set of wires in a new tube. I used that in place of the one on the bottom in the picture.

[Edward Buker]

Stan,

The two wires that you touch together that make the step work should be connected to the two wires from the new switch that you will mount. Just temporarily connect that together and pass the magnet close to the switch and see if the step activates like when you connected the two wires together. If they do, connect them more permanently with a crimp connector or whatever you are using and seal them a bit, maybe silicone and screw things in place and test it again with the door. Check if you had an ignition override that brought it in if it still is working as it should.

Later Ed

[Stan Simpson]

Thanks Ed...

Connect all 4 switch wires and the two coming out of the loom together?

Stan

[Edward Buker]

Stan,

As I understand it Stan there are two free wires that when you touch them together the stair moves and works. There are two wires that come from the new switch. Take one of the wires from the switch and connect to one of the wires that make the stairs move. Take the other wire from the switch and connect that to the other wire that makes the stairs move. Basically the new switch will connect the two wires that make the stairs move when the magnet is in proximity to the switch because it will close contacts in the switch. Does that make sense to you?

Later Ed

[Stan Simpson]

Ed as you can see in my previous post, there are TWO switches in the door frame. Two wires on each. Here is what I tried. I alligator clipped the two leads from the loom together....the step came out with the door open...and then I clipped all 4 switch wires to the other end of the alligator clip. When I put a magnet close to either of the white plastic ends on the door frame....nothing.

So, I need to wire to each separately...one from each of the switches on each of the two leads from the loom? Keeping them apart....? When they are not touching each other, the step doesn't come out.

[Edward Buker]

Stan,

I am not sure why there are two switches and several sets of harness leads. I would give BCS a call and see if they can shed some light on this.

Maybe another owner has been through this and can shed some light. The two wires that operate the step when put together must go to one set of switch leads, the other set must go to the other switch but not sure what they do.

Later Ed

[Joel Ashley]

I'm going to guess that only one of the two switches is for the step.  The other may be to a "door ajar" warning lamp on the dash or something, though I'm not aware of one.  It could be to prevent the keyless entry from actuating the door lock when the door is open, though my diagrams don't show such a switch either.  I don't think it relates to the door seal since it will inflate when the tranny engages whether the door is open or not;  that's how the seals get damaged.  My coach also has two switch's in the frame, but my schematic for the entry step only illustrates one.

Joel

[Stan Simpson]

Good insight Joel..

Perhaps one could be for the "step out" warning light? The reason I say that is because when the mobile tech installed the temporary switch, the step out light operated properly.

Stan

[Joel Ashley]

I would think the "step out" position warning lamp would be activated by the controller and not dependent on a door frame switch.  The step will activate in or out with door movement regardless of the entry step's panel switch position if the ignition is on;  it should never get stuck out and be vulnerable when the ignition is on, as long as the door is closed.  With the entry step panel switch ON and lit, the outside courtesy light will stay on, and the step will go in and out with door movement.  It is best to just leave that panel switch OFF most of the time, unless you think you need the courtesy light on a very dark night or something.  That's likely gonna be in an unlit, treed Forest Service campground on a moonless night, where you aren't plugged into power;  so it occurs to me that the courtesy light on the step underside is a great candidate for an LED bulb conversion.

Now I'm getting off-topic, so suffice to reiterate that I don't think the extra frame switch is for the warning light on the dash, and that that probably comes via the step controller.  Hopefully someone else here has an idea what it's for - it's probably something obvious that depends on the door position.  Regardless, you will need to magnet-test the switches with wires to see which is the correct pair of wires and switch for moving the step.  

My diagram shows one wire goes directly to ground, or it may ground directly to the door frame.  The other wire has a couple of connectors enroute to the brown wire from the controller.  My diagram uses numbers for satellite wires, not wire color, unfortunately;  the step door switch wire is #129 on 2005 Montereys if you can find such a number on a wire.  

The controller's red wire is like most red ones, power from the battery, in this case coming from the Entry Step circuit breaker in the 12 volt electrical bay.  The controller's yellow wire routes to the ignition, also via a circuit breaker in the electrical bay.  As many green wires do, the two from the controller go to chassis ground.  The white wire from the controller is from the step panel switch previously mentioned.  If you had a Lan Tracker device you could easily find which of the 4 wires in question at the door frame actually connects ultimately to the controller's brown wire.  But with all 12v. power off, you could do it with an ohmmeter and an alligator clip extension wire.

You might even figure out what the other switch is for by the same technique on the other wires, stringing an alligatored extension to the electrical bay;  one other of the 4 is probably another ground and easily identified with an ohmmeter right at the door frame.

Joel

[Robert Mathis]

The magnetic switch is just a open/close switch. If the steps don't work when the two red wires aren't connected, it is a normally open switch. It shouldn't matter which wire from the switch you connect to which of the two red wires from the controller, it just completes the circuit when the magnet "switches" it to closed (or vise-versa). I have no idea why there are two seperate switches, but either both of yours were bad, or the one that was still connected was bad, or the one that was still connected works something else and the one that was disconnected works the step. The door swicth just peovides and eliminates continuity to the controller. Try touching each set of wires together to see if both sets make the step operate.

[Stan Simpson]

Hello all,

Thanks again for everyone's help and suggestions. You can view my switch here... http://store.lci1.com/coach-step-door-switch-kit-p342.aspx

I'm attaching drawings of what I have done so far. Robert, I have not connected anything to ground. Both switches will work the step by themselves, which leads me to believe that they serve no other purpose.

Please excuse my attempt at drawing wiring. You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

Thanks,

Stan

[Joel Ashley]

Robert is right, Stan ... if the switches are identical normally-closed ones, then either should operate the step.  It's a matter of figuring which set of wires is involved, and that's why you need to ohmmeter the brown one off the controller.  Or check wires 1 and 2 with a voltmeter to see which reads voltage;  affirm then with an ohmmeter that the second wire is continuous to chassis ground.  But it makes no sense to me why there'd be two switches for one function - telling the controller whether the door is open or not.

It looks from your first diagram that simply hooking wires 1 and 2 up to one switch should do it.  Since when connected together and pulled apart, wires 1 and 2 operate the step correctly, one must go to the brown controller wire and the other to chassis ground.  The magnet in the door should break the switch continuity so the controller knows to retract the step, just as if you pulled wires 1 and 2 apart.

If that doesn't work, then there must be something else going on relative to the controller that we aren't understanding and that's not on my diagram, and perhaps involving that second switch.  Rather than spend more time trying to ID the second switch, I'd call BCS Monday to help find out what it is.

Joel

[Stan Simpson]

Joel,

I'm sorry to say, I had to Google "continuity" to find out what that was. I have no idea how to test for it. So, on the meter pictured below, I set it to OHM and touched the two leads together and the meter pegged all the way to the right. The I put the two leads on wire 1 and it pegged all the way right, and then the same for wire 2...same result. Does that mean that neither of them are going to ground?

What should I put where....to check continuity?

Stan

P. S. What settings do I use for checking voltage?

[Bob Jae]

Stan
Continuity trough a switch should be 0 ohms on your meter or all the way to the right.  If you were measuring something that has a resistance it would be the resistance.  The opposite of continuity would be an open circuit.  You ohm meter would not move when you tested it.

It is important that there is no voltage present on the wires when you are testing with the ohm meter.  Safest way to check your switch is to disconnect it first then check it.

[Joel Ashley]

Bob is right, Stan.  If you have the meter set to measure Ohms and touch the leads to a "hot" wire and a ground, the current will likely be too high for the meter's inner fuse and blow it.  An ohmmeter has a battery inside so it can test continuity (how "solidly" connected a circuit is) by applying its own small voltage to it, and then measuring how easily (or not) the electrons flow.  So never apply the meter to a live circuit while set for Ohms, neither 12 volt nor 120 volt.  Make sure the power is off to that circuit, or make sure you have extra meter fuses  ??) .

As Bob pointed out, if there is corrosion or a bad connection somewhere in a circuit, it will cause resistance to electron flow, and the meter's needle will move to somewhere between 0 on the right and infinity on the left.  When you hold the probes together, or against the same wire like you did, there is nothing to resist current flow between the probes, so the needle will peg fully right ... 0 ohms.  That's usually what you want to see in a connection or circuit with virtually nothing wrong, and therefore has 'continuity' from one end to the other. On the meter scale, the top one identified with the upside down horseshoe, the Greek symbol omega, is the actual one meant for ohm measurement, but don't worry about it;  you usually just want to know if the needle moves adequately or all the way to the right, indicating a nice unimpeded circuit from one end to another.  

Your OHM X1K on the dial is the correct meter switch selection for resistance.  At the bottom of the dial are the settings for alternating current voltage; normal 120 volt circuits would require using the 250 mark.  To the left are settings for measuring direct current in milliamperes.  On the right are the ones for measuring direct current (12 volt in most instances, but sometimes 6 volts) voltage, basically telling you which wire or connector is hot to the battery positive post by putting the red probe on it and the black one to chassis metal or a known ground.  Set the dial at 50 to read a 12 volt circuit, which would show up on the needle's  0 to 50 scale.

There is more to understanding the use of a meter, especially reading an analog one like yours, so I'd try to get an owner's sheet from GB if possible.

Joel