Troubleshooting a stuck Amp Powerstep

Strange thing I noticed tonight, I was taking out the trash and noticed my passenger side running board was down.
I grabbed my keys and opened the passenger side door, no board lights no movement.
I tried the drivers side (it was up as normal), and it functioned as usual.
Then I noticed the passengers side board lights were on. Well shit, now I have to actually fix it or put it on the charger.
I pulled the passenger footwell panel and the positaps felt good and secure.
I felt around the controller and may have been coincidence, but I noticed out the corner of my eye the board lights went off. Good enough for me for tonight, anyone ran into this before? I gave the board a little kick and that didn't even work.....

 

The board lights time out after a few minutes even with the doors open.
Both sides of the lights come on with either door, they aren't door specific.
I know you stated you checked the positaps, but take them apart and check them really well.
The OEM wires are so tiny, sometimes is it hard to make a connection.

I had the same issue a few years ago and it ended up being a bad positap connection in the footwell panel.
It worked fine for over a year then one day I had the same problem.
I took the positaps apart to start testing stuff with a DMM and everything tested good.
Put it all back together and it worked fine after that.
The positap somehow vibrated or whatever and lost connection.
Also, check the board motor and make sure the wire connection is good and clean.
Hopefully, your problem will be something that simple.

 

My passenger side light isn't coming on when I open the drivers side.

I'll pull the positaps and make sure they are good and snug.

 

If checking your taps doesnt provide results, you might check the passenger door switch.

If the switch is bad and doesnt think the door is closed, it probably wouldn't retract the board, but the light would still activate from the (properly functioning) driver door switch.?

 

I would check the wiring on that entire side and make sure it hasn't been damaged somehow, not sure how you ran the wiring harness but I would start there. Then I would make sure the controller isn't the culprit, some people physically move the controller and it fixes their problem which shows it's a controller issue. Otherwise if you're still under warranty you could contact Amp themselves.

 

Did you try pulling the fuse by the battery and reinserting? Mine do not function correctly after replacing the battery and it freaks me out that they are broken until I start investigating and pull the fuse and everything returns to normal.

 

First, try disconnecting the AMP step control box (the "brain"), leave it for a couple minutes, then reconnect it. I've had one or two instances where the system just needed a reset to get back in sync.

 

Man that connector is freaking on there. I tried last night to do exactly this, but couldn't get a good angle on it, and it was pretty cold out so i didn't wanna mess with it too much.

 

I think I'd have to lay across my fuse box and battery to get to my control box..

 

Now I'm second-guessing if the lights on both sides come on with any door open.
I think they do.
I'll have to wait to get my truck out of the shop to see.
I think when I had this issue the step would stay up and not come down.

 

hahaha....this is exactly where my control box is located. lol

 

I know how big of a PITA it is to get that connection on the brain unplugged without cutting zip ties. Couldn't you just remove your ground on your battery? That seems too simple but... I had that issue with mine right after I installed them. I have the plug-n-play version with the OBD2 connection instead of positaps or t-taps. All I had to do was unplug the OBD2 connection and replug it back in.

 

I just pulled the motor cover for the passenger side and tried to see if i had any voltage at the motor, nada

I pulled the main plug for the brain, when i plugged it back in, i could hear the drivers side make a clunk sound, but nothing out of the passenger side. The interior lights are still triggered when i open the passenger door, so i believe there's nothing wrong with the truck

I re-seated the positaps for the passenger side also.

I'm on hold (15min deep so far) with Amp Research right now, i pulled up my order.....Aug 2017 is when i purchased them. should be covered under the 5yr warranty.

 

Got ahold of support at AMP. Looks like i've got a bad controller.

Just fyi for anyone reading this in the future, here is the troubleshooting steps they had me do (that i had already done pretty much):
Can i push the board up manually?
Ground both trigger wires to see if the steps move?
Pull the plastic cover off the motor (kind of a bitch to get the clips out) and check the voltage going to the motor for the first 5 second after the door is opened.

If you are going to call support, have the kick pannel off and the motor cover off and a DMM ready so you dont have to try calling back (took about 30min on hold).

For me, both of those resulted in nothing. I also mentioned that when i removed the molex plug to the controller and plugged it back in i could only hear the drivers side click. that ensured that it was a controller issue.
Claim has been sent and hopefully i'll get a replacement quickly so i dont look too stupid driving with a step down.

 

Just to close up this saga....I finally received my replacement controller. It was supposed to make it out in 5-6 days, but that didn't happen, and then their warehouse was closed for the holiday (or something else possibly) so it took about a month to get the controller.

Right out of the gate, noticed something different...
Original:


And the new one:


For the keen eyed, you may have noticed that there's a new design. A call with customer support said, yep....new design. I inquired about the extra plug and if water could get in, and they said they haven't had anyone have problems with moisture or anything getting in. We'll see

So if you get a new controller it will be different than the original.

Back to having working running boards.

 

So, you got me curious about my controller. I had purchased mine and installed them myself sometime back in 2019. It looks like I have the same updated controller that you have. If it helps your confidence any, I haven't experienced any issues with environmental concerns and I have mine located in roughly the same area. Apologies for the rough, quick pic.