Re: (ET) I-5 Charger Woes

[Jeremy Gagliardi com]

When that was happening to mine, it turned out to be burnt out diodes. 
It had nothing to do with the charger itself.

The reason it happened to me is that I was brand new at being an ET
owner/operator and I was running the motor directly off the charger
without any batteries in.  That ovrloaded the diodes between the charger
and the batteries.  Perhaps for you, they are just old diodes.

The function of the diodes are to allow current in only one
direction--from the charger to the batteries.  When they go bad, they
allow current back from the batteries into the charger, which overloads
it and trips your breaker.

I hope that's it.  That would be a very cheap fix.  I was lucky enough
to have a friendly ET'er actually come by and not only troubleshoot the
problem for me, but fix it too.

Although, I must point out another potential problem.  When I was doing
maintenance on my tractor, I found 2 heavy gauge wires where the
insulation had worn away--in one case, the wire popped out of its
bracket and was rubbing against the drive belt--in the other case, a
wire behind the access panel was getting crunched by the steering gear. 
After noticing this, I noticed one of the terminals on a middle battery
had melted halfway down, and a metal plate in the steering area had
obvious scorching and melting.  These could've only happened if the worn
down wires had touched something and caused a short.  Thankfully, it
looked as though it had only shorted out for a very short time--if it
had continued to short, possibly my battery(ies) would've exploded, or
at least several key components would've completely melted.  This may
also explain why my relays seemed to be acting up during that time
period--perhaps when a relay engaged there was a short and the relay
popped back out.  Since I re-insulated the wires, the relays have been
fine.

-- 
(===========================)
     E20 in Bethesa, Md
 mailto:Jeremy Gagliardi com
(===========================)

Monty McGraw wrote:
> 
> After doing some mowing this afternoon, I noticed the energy gauge near 
> the
> red area.
> 
> I pulled back to the ET Garage :), turned the charger timer to Start, and
> plugged in the charger.
> 
> There was an unusually loud buzzing - not the normal charger sound, and
> within 15 seconds the buzzing stopped - because the house AC circuit 
> breaker
> had popped.
> 
> I tried a different breaker with no other loads - same results.
> 
> Anyone had to troubleshoot their charger lately for a similar problem?
> 
> Monty McGraw
> I-5 in Magnolia Texas