Electric roof opening/closing sensor problem

[Rayriggs1]

After four years of perfect operation, our electric roof decided not to close due to what appeared to be a failure of the mechanical ram on one side. The other side appeared to be raising and lowering as normal.

Having tried the emergency override button (hidden in the cupboard under the gas hob) a number of times, we ended up arranging a breakdown recovery vehicle to transport us to a specialist dealer whilst on holiday in France.

Turns out, I was not at all aware of the small leaf spring sensors which are positioned in front of the mechanical rams on either side of the vehicle above the front door frames. I’ve tried to show these in the attached photographs.

The problem with one of ours was that it had moved slightly out of line only by a couple of millimetres but it meant that the leaf spring was not adequately contacting the blue button below it and thereby prevented the ram operating.

Great news is that it is a very easy fix which simply requires you to re-align the leafspring so that it correctly contacts the blue button. Problem fixed and everything works perfectly now!

Hope this avoids everyone else spending hours trying to work this out for themselves.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Epigram]

Glad you got sorted out in what must have been a stressful situation for you.
In my opinions on these microswitches are the Achilles heel of the roof mechanism and are a problem waiting to happen.
They are fragile and the electrical connections to them are poorly supported and not protected in what is essentially an exterior component when the roof is up.
In order to accommodate for this very shoddy design I always give them a once over at end of the season (or when I am bored and the roof is open!) to see if there is any obvious signs of failure of the thin connections or anything that might interfere with them.

 

[Steve B]

Thanks for posting, great add to problem solving library.

 

[M10MDP]

Whilst this is an old thread - just wanted to say thank you for the information and pictures. Much appreciated