VIP Wheel trouble update

[Brett63]

Ok, last week I was posting questions about the VIP wheel as I had lost all of my controls. So here is the final update.

I figured out a work around to get wipers so we could get on the road. Here is an easy way to handle that. Unplug the wiper plug at the wiper motor. Find 12v power down there and run a wire from power to either the green or the blue wire on the wiper motor. Green=low speed, blue=high speed. Black is ground, yellow is park and red is hot. then I ran a ground from black up under the dash and put a switch in and mounted the switch in the dash. You don't have to do that, but I was not sure how long I would be temporary. With that set up you flip a switch to turn on and flip the switch to turn off. That is very basic but it allows you to have wipers.

Now for the permanent fix. I purchased a 12v~5v DC/DC converter. Then I found the hot and ground wires in my forward run box J1, 26 and 27 and cut those. Then I just wired in the 5v converter pulling power from one of the 12v lugs  with a 1amp fuse before and after the converter and ground to the ground lug. Works like a champ and all functions on the VIP work again.

This is on an 09 Signature but should work on any chassis multiplex coach.

Thanks so much goes out to Frank McElroy for the time he took out of his day to help and reassure me that what I was thinking would work. He came up with the converter idea, so all the thinking work help goes to him. I am just cheap labor....I am NOT an electrician or electrical person, but after years of owning these things I have gotten pretty good. I had no idea how the chassis multiplex system worked, that is where Frank stepped in. Outstanding explanations and I really appreciate it Sir. This saves me a trip to Ohio to M&M and who knows how much money. I have less than $20 total in this. 

[Frank McElroy]

Brett, thank you for posting the solution to this problem.  I'm sure it will help others in the future.

Also, thank you for the kind words - glad I could help.

[Grampy OG]

What a great MacGyver fix to get you through the immediate problem.

 

Thanks

[Brett63]

10 minutes ago, Grampy OG said:

What a great MacGyver fix to get you through the immediate problem.

 

Thanks

MacGyver hell.....lol Considering there is no fix that I know of and M&M basically does the exact same fix, this was intended to be long term. LOL Now if someone comes up with an actual software fix, or circuit board repair or CCM rebuild I may look into it. Until then this was done as a long term fix.

[slemnah]

Brett, glad you were able to get this resolved and thanks for posting the final solution. Keep in touch!

Steve

[Brett63]

23 hours ago, slemnah@sbcglobal.net said:

Brett, glad you were able to get this resolved and thanks for posting the final solution. Keep in touch!

Steve

I didn't know you were on here or I would have said thank you to you as well. So thank you for your help and phone time. I very much appreciate it. Sorry I didn't catch you in the first round....lol

[ken.knutson100]

Is this the Kongsberg box? For our 2009 Dynasty we had to have M&M fix ours a year ago in Florida. They charged $2600 for an hours worth of work!! 😡 I’m guessing that’s all they did was the same thing you did? They told me they had to replace the 5 volt power supply. I had no wipers or cruise. At that tine there was no one out there on the forums I contacted that could help solve the problem. What a rip off!!! 

Edited December 24, 2020 by ken.knutson100

[Brett63]

4 minutes ago, ken.knutson100 said:

Is this the Kongsberg box? For our 2009 Dynasty we had to have M&M fix ours a year ago in Florida. They charged $2600 for an hours worth of work!! 😡 I’m guessing that’s all they did was the same thing you did? They told me they had to replace the 5 volt power supply. I had no wipers or cruise. At that tine there was no one out there on the forums I contacted that could help solve the problem. What a rip off!!! 

Yes it is on the Kongsberg box. I am sure sorry you had to go through that and pay that much. I can't imagine they did much more than I did if they only added a 5v power supply. Yes, I had lost all steering wheel controls as well. But now it all appears to be just fine, at least sitting in the campground. We roll out again Saturday early, so I will be able to test the cruise then. But that is the only thing I have not been able to check other than turning it on and off and checking the RPM ramp up and down.

9 minutes ago, ken.knutson100 said:

Is this the Kongsberg box? For our 2009 Dynasty we had to have M&M fix ours a year ago in Florida. They charged $2600 for an hours worth of work!! 😡 I’m guessing that’s all they did was the same thing you did? They told me they had to replace the 5 volt power supply. I had no wipers or cruise. At that tine there was no one out there on the forums I contacted that could help solve the problem. What a rip off!!! 

Ken, can you see any type of external power supply? depending on where they put it I would suspect either in the run box like I did, or under the dash if the cut up that high.

[ken.knutson100]

17 minutes ago, Brett63 said:

Yes it is on the Kongsberg box. I am sure sorry you had to go through that and pay that much. I can't imagine they did much more than I did if they only added a 5v power supply. Yes, I had lost all steering wheel controls as well. But now it all appears to be just fine, at least sitting in the campground. We roll out again Saturday early, so I will be able to test the cruise then. But that is the only thing I have not been able to check other than turning it on and off and checking the RPM ramp up and down.

Ken, can you see any type of external power supply? depending on where they put it I would suspect either in the run box like I did, or under the dash if the cut up that high.

I thought I had taken a picture of it after they fixed it but I didn’t. And it’s in storage now 2 hours away so I’m not able to get a picture of it. But I don’t remember seeing anything different in the the bay? Maybe they put it inside the box? I wouldn’t think there would be room for it there? As soon as I can get back there I’ll take a picture and post it 

[Frank McElroy]

59 minutes ago, ken.knutson100 said:

Is this the Kongsberg box? For our 2009 Dynasty we had to have M&M fix ours a year ago in Florida. They charged $2600 for an hours worth of work!! 😡 I’m guessing that’s all they did was the same thing you did? They told me they had to replace the 5 volt power supply. I had no wipers or cruise. At that tine there was no one out there on the forums I contacted that could help solve the problem. What a rip off!!! 

I would hope that for the price they charged, M&M actually rebuilt and upgraded the failed components inside the CCM module.  Adding an external 12 to 5 volt supply properly fused in my opinion is a better solution.  Unfortunately, the +5v supply that feeds the smartwheel  is a weak link in the system.

Based on problems I'm seeing with the chassis multiplex system, there are two main issues.  One is the weak +5v supply from the CCM module and the other one is a short on the large printed circuit board.  If that happens, the board will catch fire.

I highly recommend that battery power to this board be properly fused.  Monaco did not properly protect this board from receiving up to 300 amps of battery power.

Here is a link to the file describing how to rebuild this board should it fail and how to add proper circuit breaker protection.

 

[ken.knutson100]

Thank you for the file! And good idea for putting breakers in line to the board and chassis! I’ll have to do that next spring when I take it out of storage 😊

[Frank McElroy]

Here is more information about what happened. 

The author Tal, was in his coach at the time when he smelled an electrical fire and luckily for him the first thing he did was to disconnect his batteries.  But by then the damage was already done.

At the time, the auto air leveling system was trying to operate along with the aux air compressor.  My hutch is that multilayered circuit board traces couldn't handle the load and shorted out.  When that happened, up to 300 amps of battery power went to the board and never tripped the breakers in the rrb.

This all happened when Tal was about 2,000 miles from home.  I was able to help him bypass certain sections of the board to give him enough critical components so he could safely drive the coach home.

In trying to source a board from a salvage yard it became obvious that a fire starting in the frb destroyed other coaches.

So, the decision was made to build a replacement board this time with proper fuse protection.

He then hand wired his own board using the same connectors so it was plug and play.  A parts list is given in the document.

The monaco schematics were perfect.  No errors that I recall.

To add additional safety, he also fused the 12 volt feed to each connector.  This was not done on the original board.

Hope this information will help others with a Monaco chassis multiplex coach.

[Bob125]

This is very useful information.  How do you identify the hot and ground wires J1, J26, J27?  "Then I found the hot and ground wires in my forward run box J1, 26 and 27 and cut those."  I"m looking at my schematics and do not see those identifies.  I have a 2009 Beaver Marquis.  Thanks, Bob...

[Brett63]

6 hours ago, Bob125 said:

This is very useful information.  How do you identify the hot and ground wires J1, J26, J27?  "Then I found the hot and ground wires in my forward run box J1, 26 and 27 and cut those."  I"m looking at my schematics and do not see those identifies.  I have a 2009 Beaver Marquis.  Thanks, Bob...

I pulled the center section off the steering wheel, it just pops off. Identified the hot wire (there is only one feeding the VIP portion) I THINK it was the J26. Then went to the forward run box and in the J1 bundle found the J26 wire. Then found the J27 wire. All of the wires are labled....Now to go along with that each of the wires in the run box along with the J numbers also said hot and ground, or something to that effect. I can look later on today and see if I can get a clear picture for you. I think J26 is hot and 27 is ground, but don't take that for fact as it has been long enough that I don't remember...lol 

After thinking, it seems the hot wire in the wheel is red. So I got under the dash where the bundle came down and found where the red was spliced into the actual coach bundle and there I was able to identify what J# the actual wire was. 

[ken.knutson100]

Very good info Brett!!! Thank you for the update! 

[Dalesincal]

Thanks to Frank McElroy and Brett63.  My 2008 Beaver Marquis has been having intermittent issues with all Smart wheel functions.  Often upon start up and maybe the first hour all functions work normally and then nothing, no wipers, cruise control quits, the cruise light stays on but not operational, then maybe an hour later all works for a short while.  Basically hit or miss.  I have the Kongsberg CCM, and had the coach in the shop to check and or replace the clock spring if needed.  The shop bypassed the clock spring and still had an issue.   Had to leave the shop with no repair, but the tech felt could be the 5V supply, and thought maybe it could be an issue as the power supply heats up during operation and provide low voltage.  I found and checked wire 26 and 27 as listed above and found 5V and then tried again a bit later and had 3.97 V.  So I installed the "magic" 5 V supply like Brett's and all looks steady at 5V now.  Hope this is the long term fix.  Thanks for all the great specific fix information, saved trying to track down a shop that would attempt the repair. 

[anand.s]

Does anyone have a similar experience with the Intellitec coaches?   I have a 2007 Marquis with exactly the same symptoms.  Clockspring seems fine, I’ve changed the SM211 but periodically the smart wheel stops working and wipers/cruise die.  Can often get it to restart by unplugging the connectors to the VIP box and plugging back in but does not last.   Seems like a similar problem.

Anand

[jkross59]

Smart Wheel issues.. nothing works until i turn the wheel all the way to the right then everything works. Make 1 or 1.5 turns back to the left, nothing?

[Ivan K]

If your buttons are lighted, then you have a clock spring going bad or possibly but not as likely a loose connection lower by the steering wheel shaft. Many have replaced it and documented on the net. I have slip rings that are less prone to breaking and no lighted buttons. I believe by 2003 you would have the clock spring that just breaks after years of usage. 

[Grampy OG]

Are the clock springs still available for the older coaches ( mine '03 Exec) ?

It seems like they are popping left and right. 

 

[Ivan K]

30 minutes ago, Grampy OG said:

Are the clock springs still available for the older coaches ( mine '03 Exec) ?

It seems like they are popping left and right. 

 

Just a random Google search brought this. I remember reading about someone replacing it with a VW spring for a small fraction of the crazy cost.

https://shop.findmyrvparts.com/clock-spring-kit-motorhome-monaco-16616943-1900043-p/190063.htm

[Grampy OG]

11 hours ago, Ivan K said:

Just a random Google search brought this. I remember reading about someone replacing it with a VW spring for a small fraction of the crazy cost.

https://shop.findmyrvparts.com/clock-spring-kit-motorhome-monaco-16616943-1900043-p/190063.htm

Thanks for the link Ivan. I hope to not need it but having a list of hard to find parts is always good. I replace one in my '02 dynasty way back in '06. If I remember it wasn't terribly hard to do it did take some time. I was cleaning my shop this week and actually stumbled on the steering wheel puller that I had purchased for the task. 

Thanks again,

Ken

[Brett63]

On 5/21/2022 at 11:02 PM, anand.s said:

Does anyone have a similar experience with the Intellitec coaches?   I have a 2007 Marquis with exactly the same symptoms.  Clockspring seems fine, I’ve changed the SM211 but periodically the smart wheel stops working and wipers/cruise die.  Can often get it to restart by unplugging the connectors to the VIP box and plugging back in but does not last.   Seems like a similar problem.

Anand

The VIP wheel is in no way tied to the Intelletec system. In the non CCM coaches your VIP will have it's own modual tyipically in the dash. 

[ak49er]

Can anyone recommend the Amp Rating of the 12vdc to 5vdc converter that was suggested to use as the fix for the VIP Wheel? I see many options available. thank-you.

 

 

[Frank McElroy]

If I'm not mistaken it was a 5 amp rated converter fused at 1 amp on both the input and output ends.  Bought on Amazon.  The fuse ratings were mentioned in an earlier post.