Nomad Nexus

So after speaking with Zip Dee (they’re great, and a person answers the call and forwards you immediately to a tech), I located the control board under the”L” part of the couch. Once you remove the cushion and the panel under it, you will see the red circuit board in front of the sub woofer. Is power is getting to the board, it will have several lit yellow lights, but mine was completely dark.

Since the whole board was dark, the Zip Dee technician said there must be a fuse Airstream has installed somewhere. He suggested calling Airstream to locate it.

This is one thing that irritates me about Airstream’s manuals: they don’t show a layout of the trailer and locations of equipment behind the numerous panels and cushions throughout the coach. Nevertheless, I ended the call with Zip Dee and called Airstream Support. The Airstream technician referred me to “under the rear dinnette bench,” where I found the second 12-volt fuse panel under the panel within the 12″ by 12″ plywood covered hole under the rear cushion.

I removed the cover over the fuses and easily found the burned fuse lit by a red light. I used the fuse puller and spare fuse provided within the fuse panel to replace the blown fuse.

I returned to the controller board where I found it lit up. After pressing the awning lock/power buttons (press both the Tilt Front + Tilt Rear buttons simultaneously) followed by the Awning Retract then the Awning Extend button (I had to repeat the whole sequence a couple of times), the Awning finally extended!

Always start with the Awning Retract button so the system will sense it is closed. For example, if your awning is stuck in the extended position (you didn’t use the awning emergency kit to manually close the awning like I had), replace the fuse and press Awning Retract. The tech said I might need to cycle through retracting then extending if the awning doesn’t fully retract on first try.

By the way, if replacing the fuse had not solved my problem, I would have had to replace one of the arms ($1300 new, $650 refurbished after returning the non-functioning arm). Of course, our awning was 2 weeks out of warranty but luckily, the fuse fixed everything.

Whichever light is not lit once the board is getting power (many lights all over the board), the important 4 lights next to the Ethernet ports will tell you which arm is problematic (a dark r-home, r-pulse LED light means the rear arm is broken, f-home, f-pulse means front).

Next up….: “Relax” Power Awning Update