power wedge failure.

[wazzajohno]

On 6/8/2015 at 1:35 PM, Skin2Win said:

No luck this weekend with the calibration procedure. I went on the setup screen, hit calibrate, asked me to put wedge all the way down, I could not get it to go down and a "can not calibrate" message came up. I am guessing that I am going to need to replace the whole control box to make the new 5 lobe actuators work correctly. Is it the entire viper box that I need to replace? I have looked for a separate lenco control box and cannot find it.

On my 2013 VLX the lenco control box is under the helm close to the walkway to the bow. Just above the inside guts to the speaker in the walkway. 

[wazzajohno]

I wonder if my wedge problems are due to the touch screen. The following all happened during a hot week at Lake Powell.  I am having a few weird electrical problems and I wonder if they all center around the MTC.  

Screen:  A very small line along the right side looks wet. This doesn't extent into the start button or the wedge buttons. 

Wedge: When controlling the wedge with the MTC it works intermittently. Sometimes the deploy button will send down the wedge and sometimes the down arrow will work.  It got stuck 1/2 half down while there and after several restarts and restes I got it back up.  Now I am testing in the garage.  I have found that the wedge works perfectly if I use the bypass fuse under the dash for up and down.  

Bilge and Blower: MTC button changes color when switching bilge and Blower but they don't come on.  

Lights: Swim lights work from the MTC switch, Navigation and tower do not.  Tested bulbs and they are good. When i switch the lights on with the MTC the button lights up for a few minutes and then switches itself off. 

Fuses:  one odd thing, the fuse bypass under the dash for wedge up is not in the same location as marked on the cover.  Could I be wired incorrectly.  Most of the posts in this thread are about start button issues.  Has anyone see anything like I am experiencing?

[skurfer]

You guys ever have a fix for these faults? I am getting starboard ram fault. 2013 LSV. No calibration on Maliview and no sensor on wedge. Replaced both actuators already.

Edited June 9, 2018 by skurfer

[skurfer]

Fixed it. 5 amp wedge down fuse was blown. Hard to see. Always check easy stuff first. So bad rams, blown 20 amp fuse and blown 5 amp fuse.

Edited June 9, 2018 by skurfer

[Fman]

2 hours ago, skurfer said:

Fixed it. 5 amp wedge down fuse was blown. Hard to see. Always check easy stuff first. So bad rams, blown 20 amp fuse and blown 5 amp fuse.

Could the faulty actuators triggered the blown 5 and 20 amp fuse?  Or did everything work fine after replacing actuators then over time the fuses went?  I have seen a few posts on bad actuators causing fuses to blow.

[skurfer]

Bad actuators blew the fuses

[saxton15]

Did you get both port and stb draw failure codes?  I'm only getting the port one now.  My 20amp fuse was blown, put a new one in, looked like everything was working until I tried to lower the wedge.  Screen showed the wedge going down, then it tossed up the code again.  I stuck my hand behind the boat and the wedge was still in the stowed position.  

[saxton15]

On this topic, can someone help me out with finding the replacement actuator?  Bakes has them for 275, but they have got to be cheaper than that considering Lenco's are not malibu specific.  Is there an alternate part number?

Edited June 10, 2018 by saxton15

[asnowman]

I got mine here, its still not great

anchorexpress.com/lenco-102xd-extreme-duty-actuator-15060-001?gclid=Cj0KCQjwmPPYBRCgARIsALOziAPHYNYE_P3bEV1AoGFFx60BgQBXbXk2qPPdEsdrwfYzrDi_Phvj83AaAvRGEALw_wcB

It comes with new connector plugs and everything. Its a pretty straight forward replacement.

[skurfer]

8 hours ago, saxton15 said:

Did you get both port and stb draw failure codes?  I'm only getting the port one now.  My 20amp fuse was blown, put a new one in, looked like everything was working until I tried to lower the wedge.  Screen showed the wedge going down, then it tossed up the code again.  I stuck my hand behind the boat and the wedge was still in the stowed position.  

Check your 5 amp Wedge Up and Wedge down fuses in the black box under the dash. Hopefully one of them is popped like mine was.

[saxton15]

I checked both, and they were ok.  The 20 amp was blown, and after replacing it, attempting to put the wedge down to no avail, it popped again.  Just ordered up a new actuator, hopefully I get it by next weekend.  

[skurfer]

2 hours ago, saxton15 said:

I checked both, and they were ok.  The 20 amp was blown, and after replacing it, attempting to put the wedge down to no avail, it popped again.  Just ordered up a new actuator, hopefully I get it by next weekend.  

If you are going to replace 1, you might as well replace both. An easy way to test them is take them off the boat, cut the wires in a good place that you can connect the new ram wires to. Then you can peel back the old wires, strip and hook up to a battery. If the rams move out, then switch the wires to move them back in. If the ram doesn't move, it's bad...

[saxton15]

Bad like the actuator is finished?  Replacing them isn't a big deal, I just cannot believe these things cost $200+.  Lenco makes tons of them for the boating industry, you'd think the higher volume could lower the cost.  

 

[BSUBU_Kris]

You don't have to cut the wires from the boat.  Take the end caps off and there are spades on the motor that the wires from the boat connect to.  You can hook up wires to the motor and connect them to a battery to test the motor.  Reverse polarity to change direction.  I didn't use a fuse but it might be a good idea.  I ran both actuator several times fully extending then fully retracting and timing them to make sure they were reasonably close to sync.  My 3 lobe actuators took about 6 seconds each way.  Once hooked back up to the boat if you keep retracting the wedge once it is all the way up or deploying it once all the way down, they resync because the motor will just spin once they reach the limit of movement for the ram.

I have not put on a 5 lobe actuator but would be surprised if the end cap was different which would mean you could use the same end cap and not have to cut any wires.  My understanding is the motors are the same in both the 3 and 5 lobe actuators.  Here is a link to a write of my experience with the power wedge on my 2011 LSV.

Hope this helps.

[csleaver]

I was told by a malibu rep that the power wedge actuators should always be replaced in pairs.  If one actuator moves slower than the other, it will cause a dash alarm and possibly blow the fuse as they fight against each other.  It is also important to continuously turn the actuator pistons until they bottom out and are at the same length before installing.  The wedge also needs to be aligned to prevent one actuator from working harder than the other.  You can loosen the adjusting bolts on the top wedge bracket, with the actuators installed, until the wedge blade sags down, then push the wedge blade up until the tips of the blade are even with the bracket, then tighten the adjusting bolts.

[erikj]

On 6/9/2018 at 3:15 PM, skurfer said:

Fixed it. 5 amp wedge down fuse was blown. Hard to see. Always check easy stuff first. So bad rams, blown 20 amp fuse and blown 5 amp fuse.

Hey man, not sure it if you can help or not but where did you find that 5 amp fuse?  I could only find the 30 amp.  Thanks!

[grich8888]

My 5 amp fuses on a 2013 are where all the fuses are, under the steering column.  There are a bunch under there that run the bilge, blower, ballasts and the wedge.

 

[erikj]

On 7/11/2018 at 12:19 PM, grich8888 said:

My 5 amp fuses on a 2013 are where all the fuses are, under the steering column.  There are a bunch under there that run the bilge, blower, ballasts and the wedge.

 

Ahh, ok, that does not apply to my boat, thanks

[Archambault]

Just thought I share my experience for any other owner of malibu wakesetter 2010 corvette edition.

I had the same error, and even at some point the lcd wasn’t showing where the wedge was at.

after reading this site and some troubleshotting documents and video, I wanted to use the trick of moving the wedge fuse to a safty off fuse plug, but no luck, it wasn’t available on my model. 

In the end I realized that the boat fuse are not the only one involved in the wedge power. The wedge computer « Lenco », had a fuse of its own (in the orange fusebox). It happen to have blown up. I changed it, and the wedge went down by itself and ready to use again.

 

I hope this help someone,

Joel

[Dockoelboto]

sorry to bring this up.

I have a 2013 TXi, it has the power wedge feature but no wedge. I really only ski so I'm not worried about a wedge that I don't even have.

I started getting this error as the weather turned colder.

Do I need to even worry about this alarm?

Can I just forget about it?

[wdr]

What I would do is contact the dealer to see if there is an update to the computer. If for no other reason than to get rid of the annoying warning. When you get a chance to take it in have them update it. Who knows, you may not have a wedge, but that computer issue may effect something else at a most in opportune time.