Girard Wind Sensor FYI

[Dick Simonis]

I'm just passing along some info that others my or may not know and might find useful.

A while back my wind sensor cup and shaft was forcibly removed by a long hanging power line which I considered a nuisance and didn't think much more about it other than ordering a new one.  The coach was going to be out of commission for awhile getting the front cabinets removed and replaced with new ones for the TV conversion/upgrade.  Last week end we took off for the weekend and our first chance to use the new TV setup but when we tried putting out the awning....nada, it would not extend.  Putting it out manually it would retract but not extend.  OK, time to worry since all the electrical stuff had been hanging while the cabinets were out and I figured something went awry.

I called Girard and explained the situation to Ricky and got an oops, this is not good response.  His best guess it that one of the strain reliefs on the control box was not tight enough and a solder joint broke free......the fix would be a $900.00 box.

Yesterday, I mounted the new wind sensor and thought....could this possibly been the problem with it not extending??  Pushed the "out" button and viola, out it goes working perfectly.  I'm not sure why the sensor damage caused the problem unless the shaft damaged something on it's way out but I accept that the sensor does more than just count pulses.

Anyway, long story short.....if anyone suffers severe damage to the sensor....your awning may not extend.

[Lee Welbanks]

Dick,

Good info to have in the old memory bank, the two wires going to the wind sensor may have to complete a circuit of some such thing. I had a bad solder connection in my Girard board which caused the awning to retract when it felt like it, one of the Girard Tech's told me what to look for on the board and I just re-soldered two of the pins and it works like new again.
You can also change the control to completely manual with the purchase of a paddle switch and take out the control board, but of course you would not have the wind sensor but not $900 either.

[Dick Simonis]

Lee, do you happen to recall which solder points needed to be repaired???

I thought I was out of the woods but now the awning is randomly closing.....sound familiar??

Dick

[Lee Welbanks]

Dick,

That is exactly what mine was doing, I will dig up the pic's and post them in here, if I remember correctly it was the ones for the manual switch. It got to where sometimes the switch would not actuate the awning and had to use the remote to get the awning to move, then the switch would work again.
I'll see if I can locate the pics.

[Lee Welbanks]

Dick,

Found the pic of the back of the board with the pins circled, used my mini soldering iron to touch up the joints. Under magnification you could see that the joints looked bad, not shinny and clean like all the rest.

[Dick Simonis]

Thanks Lee, I'll pull mine out and see if it's the same. 

The manuals Girard sent me show wiring for the Windsensor V control box and mine is older with the Windsensor II box but a call to Girard and they found an old manual for the G25 awning.  Nice because it also includes the info on the older remote and other stuff.

So, if anyone has the older awning I have the manual but cannot attach in a post.  Just shoot me an email and I'll send it to you.