Does anyone else think they should eliminate the "touch lite" door handle for the Porch Light. I have had nothing but trouble with these touch switches on both of my coaches. Maybe the newer coaches don't have it and if so, I know why.
HATE the touch lite handle - reasons are not mentionable :))
It is a dumb thing - I never use my door light and always wonder when see other RVer's with their exterior lights on all night "what are they thinking" that dang battery in most of those coaches won't last the night - but that is my Humble Opinion ;D
To me it is just a silly, cute drain on 12v. IMHO
Me, too. I use it from time to time, but I don't think it is all that great.
I love the touch light handle. We have lived with them since 1991 and they have worked flawlessly. If we were choosing between two coaches and all things were equal except one had the touch light and on did not we would chose the touch light in a heart beat.
Paul
36' 2000 U320
Paul, if you have had them since 1991 with no problems, I applaud you. Maybe it is my shocking sense of humor or my electrifying intellect that keeps frying the touch light controller. Whatever it is, I keep burning them out.
I like using the touch light handle also.
Helps a lot when you are fumbling with your keys in the dark.
For us, it's the "energizing" interior fabric of our 2003 CR-V toad.
We always build up static riding around in that car. The one time we forgot to "discharge" ourselves on the car doors when exiting we learned all about the lack of ESD protection circuitry on the Intellitec touch-lite module. At the Texas Grandvention. After which we learned about the 279 screws (only a slight exaggeration) needed to access the module in our '03 FT.
Bzzzzztttt... Zap..... DOH!
Michelle
I realize I have the Poortravel version U270, but this is one of those features that one never knows if it works or not; or you just don't have that feature. How does the handle touch feature work? I can turn the porch light on and the handle light comes on as well. But, with the light off, if the metal portion of the handle is touched (once? twice?) the porch light & the handle light will come on for a pre-set amount of time?
Michelle, I wondered about ESD causing it but I couldn't believe that the manufacturer hadn't anticipated that and incorporated some kind of ESD protection. Have you figured out how to avoid that problem? Where is your Intellitec Module?
At night just a touch of the handle base allows us to find the door key hole easily. In addition, when I grill in the evenings (which is fairly often) the porch light helps great deal. The touch light did stop once a couple years ago, but I cleaned contacts, re-adjusted the spring, and luckily, it started working again. Knock on wood, it still is. Sure, we could live without the touch light, but prefer not to.
OK Don, what contact points and what spring did you adjust? Are you talking about the ones in the handle base? Would that keep the light from coming on with the switch inside the door?
ESD being a transient, and needing a low impedence shunt to Earth to properly dissipate, there really isn't a way to adequately protect the Intellitec module (after all, you activate it by personally providing a shunt to Earth...)
Our solution is to make sure we discharge ourselves by tapping the car several times before touching the door handle.
(and not wearing corduroy pants or synthetic fabrics ;D )
For us, the module is inside the box that's part of the passenger magazine rack by the door. The part with the rotary front vent switch and 12V outlet. Tons of square drive screws to remove to get into the box. It requires some acrobatics and contortionism to access all the screws.
Michelle
I agree with the above on having the light is better than not having it. On my unit, I have the magic model, every time I turn on the light at sink, the light comes on until I turn the sink light off. Gotta be that ole magic. :) Works great when touched.
That's right, Peter, the light will come on for about 30-60 seconds, then shuts off again. Quite handy.
So the module provides a resident charge and your body completes the circuit? How does your charged body fry the ungrounded module. If that's correct, there should be circuit traps that could redirect the ES discharge at levels that could cause damage.
Kent, as I recall, just those in the handle base were the only accessible ones. Seems like I had to do some re-caulking also.
Peter,
Us "Poortravels" don't have to fuss with the Electrostatic Discharge problems 'cause only the U295's and up have the touch lighted handles (KISS, KISS..............remember?).
Best Regards,
Neal
Neal,
Thanks...I was beginning to worry again that something that should be working, was not....(gotta stop doing that!)...
And, yes...KISS is wondefull.
Kent,
I'm sure it is nothing that I do. It is just that with our two Foretravels (1991 & 2000) ours has never failed to work for us. Of course now, after this discusion, probably the next time I touch it, it will not work. If that happens, is it okay if I blame you?
Paul
36' 2000 U320
Paul, I have a broad back and a long track record of responsibility. Ask Peggy, I am always responsible for things that go wrong.
I like the touch light too, but have one little problem with it. Twice now, during a heavy rain, I've had the light stay on for a couple of days straight with no way to turn it off. Unfortunately, each time that happened, it burned out the ballast in the porch light. I think it is time to replace the porch light with LED and no ballast, and add to RTV to the handle to keep water from activating the switch.
By the way, in my FT, the fan switch is right next to the throne.
Regarding porch light staying on, our coach has a switch on the fixture that serves as a master for the porch light. If it is not on, the light will not illuminate. If the switch is on, the rocker near the door or the touch switch on the door will cause the lamps to light. When we bought the coach, the porch light would not work at all. Some WD-40 and manipulation of the switch allowed the light to start working. I expect Corrosion-X may be an appropriate substance to apply the next time I remove the rubber boot from the switch.
After the light started working, I was puzzled because it would come on for no apparent reason. Michelle informed me that the behavior was a "feature" rather than a "bug." I hadn't noticed that my touching the appropriate metal part of the door handle would illuminate the "convenience lamp."
My 07 Nimbus has - had - the touch light, as did my 2000. After about 18 months (long enough to be out of warranty) the "touch" stopped working. I removed the handle and found the upper cavity full of water. I dried everything, recaulked and reinstalled. Surprise !: it still does not work. I was told by FT parts that no parts available. Only solution is to buy a whole new handle kit - $340 (as I recall). I do without the touch feature. Porch lite works fine on the switch; comes on automatically when I use the remote unlock.
btw: my doorbell stopped working a year or so ago.
The touch feature (and the doorbell) on my old 2000 model was still working when I traded it in mid 06.
Regards to all,
Ours stopped working this year, too. I our case (2003) it turns out the doorbell is battery operated ::) and we had to replace what were either C or D cells.
I would never have expected batteries!
Of course, I wouldn't have expected 2 of our Hawk 101 security system window sensors to be battery operated (9V) and glued in place way up under the valences (where 12V exists), either. Oh, and when the battery gets low, the sensors intermittently fail in "open - fault" mode, causing the alarm to go off for no apparent reason.
Michelle
We enjoy the touch handle but ours has started to act up occasionally. Now our porch light has totally died and new bulbs didn't help. Has anyone found an LED that would work in the existing fixture after bypassing ballast?? Please advise... Bill
Bill,
My porch light was dead, but the handle light worked. I pulled the light off and found that the switch on the bottom of the light fixture was kaput. I removed the switch, connected the two wires together, plugged the old switch hole and put it back together. The factory (I assume) really glued the fixture on with lots of silicone, be careful taking it off. I added an additional switch inside that allows me to turn off the upper porch light only. There is a factory switch that operates both the handle light and the porch light.
Good luck,
I happend to love it and haven't had any problems with it.
I like it so much I expanded it's use to include exiting the coach as well. I wired the output of module to include the new LED lights I added in the stepwell. Inside next to the entry (I have a mid entry coach) is the kitchen counter with a hinged extension leaf on the side. I wired the hinge (piano style) to the input of the touch sensor module. That step well can get pretty dark at night and it's real handy and natural to just touch that hinge and not have to worry about turning it off.