Equalizer "RETRACT ALL" mod...

[CADman_KS]

I haven't taken the module out, but is it possible to configure the retract all button so that it does just that, RETRACTS ALL LANDING GEAR? Like when I'm ready to go, I hit one button, and drive off?

Has anyone done this???

 

[CADman_KS]

I should have provided more information on why I want to do this.

<rant on>

I would like for the RETRACT ALL button to be just that, a RETRACT ALL button, not a RETRACT SOME button.

But alas, that won't work, because for some silly reason, in the Equalizer coding, you have to hit the RETRACT SOME button BEFORE you start doing AUTO LEVEL. That logic makes zero sense to. The system SHOULD be "measuring" where you are level wise, and it shouldn't matter if you have some jacks down or not. Is the unit level, yes or no, if no, continue leveling until level.

The ENTIRE Equalizer jack system is our number one complaint with our 2021 Jayco. Yeah, it has some other nuisances, but the rest of them pale in comparison to the performance of the Equalizer. I guess that you could be happy with the Equalizer, if you've never had a hydraulic Lippert Level-Up system. The Lippert is: Faster. Better individual jack control. Auto levels without a NASA initiating sequence. Never has to be reset. Digital controls that show you were you're at. Return to hitch height, that actually works, and works well. Once "level" is set, it goes back to the same setting time after time (I have reset the "level" point on the Equalizer no less than 3 times, and it is still not "level" every time after an Auto Level)

There may be one positive thing about the Equalizer, and that is that it has a larger front jack than the Lippert. That may help with stability, but that's about it. Our Lippert system never had any issues lifting the front, OR lifting the entire unit off of the ground to get level.

<rant off>

I'm not a fan of the Equalizer...

 

[Learjet]

There may be one positive thing about the Equalizer, and that is that it has a larger front jack than the Lippert. That may help with stability, but that's about it. Our Lippert system never had any issues lifting the front, OR lifting the entire unit off of the ground to get level.

<rant off>

I'm not a fan of the Equalizer...

The older units must have had a smaller foot print....The unit I have has a 12" front foot pad and 9" on the rear

On Edit...I see you are talking about the Hydraulic cylinder....I have been happy the Lippert system.

 

[Yooper906]

I should have provided more information on why I want to do this.

<rant on>

I would like for the RETRACT ALL button to be just that, a RETRACT ALL button, not a RETRACT SOME button.

But alas, that won't work, because for some silly reason, in the Equalizer coding, you have to hit the RETRACT SOME button BEFORE you start doing AUTO LEVEL. That logic makes zero sense to. The system SHOULD be "measuring" where you are level wise, and it shouldn't matter if you have some jacks down or not. Is the unit level, yes or no, if no, continue leveling until level.

The ENTIRE Equalizer jack system is our number one complaint with our 2021 Jayco. Yeah, it has some other nuisances, but the rest of them pale in comparison to the performance of the Equalizer. I guess that you could be happy with the Equalizer, if you've never had a hydraulic Lippert Level-Up system. The Lippert is: Faster. Better individual jack control. Auto levels without a NASA initiating sequence. Never has to be reset. Digital controls that show you were you're at. Return to hitch height, that actually works, and works well. Once "level" is set, it goes back to the same setting time after time (I have reset the "level" point on the Equalizer no less than 3 times, and it is still not "level" every time after an Auto Level)

There may be one positive thing about the Equalizer, and that is that it has a larger front jack than the Lippert. That may help with stability, but that's about it. Our Lippert system never had any issues lifting the front, OR lifting the entire unit off of the ground to get level.

<rant off>

I'm not a fan of the Equalizer...

I can't understand what you are looking for. I can do individual jacks, I don't have a "retract some" button. I must have a basic system. When unhooking, I raise the front legs until the hitch plate is slightly off the hitch. Unlock it and pull the truck out. Then I do Auto level and seems to work fine.
I value your posts, but I'm thinking I'm missing something here.

 

[JimD]

Have you tried doing a calibration procedure on it? My buttons work as indicated whether it is auto level or all retract.

Had a problem once where my wife spilled water on the controller and wiped it off with a towel. The water had no effect on the controller but rubbing it with a towel and pressing all the buttons at the same time sent it into the Twilight Zone. The jacks wouldn't retract or extend properly.

I was looking into replacing the controller but decided to try a calibration. Doing that procedure totally solved the weird issues that had been created.

Can't hurt to try.

 

[F350guy-JAY]

I can't understand what you are looking for. I can do individual jacks, I don't have a "retract some" button. I must have a basic system. When unhooking, I raise the front legs until the hitch plate is slightly off the hitch. Unlock it and pull the truck out. Then I do Auto level and seems to work fine.
I value your posts, but I'm thinking I'm missing something here.

I'm pretty sure the retract some is a bit of sarcasm as the retract all button does not really retract all. Our prior fifth wheel had the Lippert system and it did give more individual control. It never gave us any issues. The Equalizer on our Pinnacle does have less control but I honestly haven't given it much thought. I don't recall ever having to do a reset. For my use having the rear jacks operate together has been okay.

I'm not sure how retracting all the jacks at the same time would help with hooking up as it would not be likely that the pin would be at the right height. When I'm ready to hook up I hit the retract all to lift the rear jacks before raising or lowering the front jacks to the height I need. I can't see that working well if the rear jacks are down. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

 

[CADman_KS]

I can't understand what you are looking for. I can do individual jacks, I don't have a "retract some" button. I must have a basic system. When unhooking, I raise the front legs until the hitch plate is slightly off the hitch. Unlock it and pull the truck out. Then I do Auto level and seems to work fine.
I value your posts, but I'm thinking I'm missing something here.

Thank you for the kind words on my posts. Appreciate that.

I use mine EXACTLY like you stated above, and for that ONE function it works OK, AFTER you have gone thru the "ALL RETRACT" to get the "AUTO LEVEL" sequence to initiate. The necessity to do the "ALL RETRACT" first, just seems silly to me. And "AUTO LEVEL" is only successful about a 1/3 of the time. When it's not successful, you have to do a hard reset on the system, by cutting it's 12V power and starting the whole sequence over.

Do have an "ALL RETRACT" (I think that's actually the buttons name) on your system? And, when you hit it, what does it do? Retract ALL jacks, or just the rear?

I referenced the Lippert system in my original post. If you have never been around the Lippert system, you would probably think that the Equalizer was a good system. The Lippert system literally makes the Equalizer look like a kindergarten project. They are that far apart. Yes, they both auto-level, and that's really about the only similarity. So so many more features on the Lippert, and it just works, 100% of the time. I wouldn't know any of this either, if I had never had a Lippert system in our Montana.

 

[CADman_KS]

Have you tried doing a calibration procedure on it? My buttons work as indicated whether it is auto level or all retract.

Had a problem once where my wife spilled water on the controller and wiped it off with a towel. The water had no effect on the controller but rubbing it with a towel and pressing all the buttons at the same time sent it into the Twilight Zone. The jacks wouldn't retract or extend properly.

I was looking into replacing the controller but decided to try a calibration. Doing that procedure totally solved the weird issues that had been created.

Can't hurt to try.

I believe that I have recalibrated at least three times, or those are the ones that I can remember. We've only had it out 6-7 times since we bought it new! Recalibrating doesn't help with any of the other issues that I'm experiencing.

I noticed that you have a motorhome. ALL RETRACT for you DOES retract every jack I'm guessing. That is NOT true of a 6 jack system on the fifth wheels. ALL RETRACT on a 6 jack system just does the rear 4 jacks.

As for recalibrating, I recalibrated the last time that we were out. I can almost bet you that when we level the next time we go out, the unit will NOT be level. I read the Equalizer manual front to back last night, had just skimmed it previously, and the auto level feature is only good to 0.5" in 4'. That means that in 8' it can be off 1"! From front to back in 42' fifth wheel, that equates to 2.5"! I guarantee you that I can tell when it's off 1" side-to-side, and that drives me crazy!

I now permanently have a level in the 5er, and my plan is to auto level, get out my level, and manually level it to finish the job. Again, like I said in a couple of previous posts, I had never had these issues with the Lippert system. In fact, I only recalibrated once, and that was shortly after we got it. I don't think that it was quite correct from the factory. I never touched it after that, and I never felt like we were unlevel either...

 

[CADman_KS]

I'm pretty sure the retract some is a bit of sarcasm as the retract all button does not really retract all. ...

Yes, it is sarcasm, but call it SOME RETRACT or REAR RETRACT, not ALL RETRACT. Especially if your competition has the ability to do ALL RETRACT.

...

I'm not sure how retracting all the jacks at the same time would help with hooking up as it would not be likely that the pin would be at the right height. When I'm ready to hook up I hit the retract all to lift the rear jacks before raising or lowering the front jacks to the height I need. I can't see that working well if the rear jacks are down. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

Once you understood how to use the Lippert system, and it did take me several times to figure it out, this was the unhitching / hitching sequence:

Unhitching:

• Raise FRONT jack to get kingpin high enough to unhook
• Unhook, drive away
• Hit AUTOLEVEL, and go do do something else like hook up power, water, drink a beer

Hitching:

• Hit sequence to go BACK to the unhitching point (I believe it was LEFT/RIGHT at the same time)
• Back truck up and hitch. Probably 90% of the time, no extra adjustment was needed
• Lock hitch, close tailgate
• Hit RETRACT ALL sequence on controller. ALL jacks, including rears and fronts come up an once, and you only have to hit this button ONCE to do all of them.
• Drive off into sunset

So, with the Lippert, you do NOT have to sit there and hold the front jack button to retract it. Just hit that retract all button and walk away. The beauty of that button was also, that if you did NOT initiate the re-hitch sequence, and manually put up the rear jacks first, hitting the ALL RETRACT will STILL retract the front jacks without any extra intervention from you.

If you want to know how far out of level the system is, just go and look at it on the controller. You can't see that anywhere on the Equalizer. You have to use a level.

There's not ALL RETRACT to START the auto level sequence on the Lippert.
I never had to hard reset the Lippert.
The Lippert always stayed level, once it was set...

 

[CADman_KS]

The older units must have had a smaller foot print....The unit I have has a 12" front foot pad and 9" on the rear

On Edit...I see you are talking about the Hydraulic cylinder....I have been happy the Lippert system.

So, I've seen that Jayco is putting the Lippert system on some of the 22's, and some still have the Equalizer. Some of the older 22's had Equalizer.

I wonder if that's because of supply chain, customer complaints, or both...

On edit: Does your have the "fancy" Lippert controller that has digital readouts on it so that you can see what angle you're at, and other functions???

 

[Learjet]

So, I've seen that Jayco is putting the Lippert system on some of the 22's, and some still have the Equalizer. Some of the older 22's had Equalizer.

I wonder if that's because of supply chain, customer complaints, or both...

On edit: Does your have the "fancy" Lippert controller that has digital readouts on it so that you can see what angle you're at, and other functions???

Lippert system yes! fancy read out no! Works as advertised... yes!

 

[CADman_KS]

Lippert system yes! fancy read out no! Works as advertised... yes!

While I loved the Lippert system on our Montana, it was the full readout version.

I still think that the "plain" Lippert panel has more functions than the Equalizer though.

Do you have hitch height? That was a nice feature on ours..

 

[Learjet]

While I loved the Lippert system on our Montana, it was the full readout version.

I still think that the "plain" Lippert panel has more functions than the Equalizer though.

Do you have hitch height? That was a nice feature on ours..

yes, I have the hitch height button and it also works through the BmPro tablet and phone app.

 

[CADman_KS]

yes, I have the hitch height button and it also works through the BmPro tablet and phone app.

Even with "simple" panel, that would be a HUGE improvement over the Equalizer system.

You hit hitch height button, hitch up, and then hit retract all, and drive off.

AND, you don't have to stand there pushing a button while retracting. It does all of that automatically.

I'm envious...