(ET) My First Mow Job

["Humphrey, Timothy" <HumphreyT neads ang af mil>]

Well, I had my first ET Experience last night!

In the few weeks prior I was busy putting in new batteries and trying to
straighten out some of the electronics while I waited for my grass to grow.


I had originally picked this tractor up last December. It had no batteries,
and the mower deck had been dismantled. The motors were rebuilt by Bill, so
I was pretty confident that they would work. Thanks to this list and
especially to the documentation available on the web-site I was able to
reassemble the deck without too much hassle.

This is the I-5 Tractor. My card 4 needed some work. Q401 had an
emitter-base short. Diodes 402, 403, 413,414 were all short and the edge
connectors at pins 17 and 19 were missing (they were either burnt off or
someone in the past had used rosin flux to repair this card, I'm thinking
burnt). Bill sells this card for $45.00. I'm ordering one from him, but 
also
decided to attempt a fix on the one I have.

I'll tell you, some of these components are hard to find. I used 1N5408
diodes in place of the originals. The replacements have a 1kv PIV vice 500,
and have a 6.25w dissipation, so should hold up better. I replaced both
transistors with same part number replacements, got lucky there. 

My varistor on Card 3 was also vaporized, I couldn't find the exact part
number for this, Bill has it though. I replaced it with a V39ZA20 device.
The original was a V36ZA80. I expect it to fail, but hasn't yet. 

My cruise control doesn't work. The lights and horn didn't work and after
about a half hour troubleshooting I figured out that the fuse wasn't making
good contact in the holder. (How many times has fuse holder connections 
been
discussed on this and the EV list? ;-). ) 

I got the cards all put together and plugged them in woo-hoo I now have all
of my speeds, Still need to troubleshoot the cruise circuits though.

After mounting the motors to the deck, I plugged the in and the all worked
fine, although the very loud roar was a little disappointing considering 
how
everyone is always saying how quiet the Elec-Traks are.  Of course it
probably didn't help that I was in the garage with the doors closed :-) 

Picked up a can of Krylon Rust Stop in Implement Orange, it is almost a
perfect match for the original I-5 paint. This can was anyway, who knows
about the next one. At first I thought nothing was coming out of the can, 
it
was that close.

I mowed Thursday afternoon, did about a quarter acre, then put it on the
charger. Remember, battery break in period. The grass does a wonderful job
of muffling the blade noise. It was in fact a very quiet experience. I also
figured out at this time just what those springs and chains are for. One of
mine was missing. I picked up some replacements at the local hardware 
store,
and put them on.

QUESTION: During battery break-in is it necessary to get a full charge, or
are we just looking to exercise the batteries. i.e.. discharge 'em, bulk
charge 'em, then discharge 'em, repeat.

After a few hours of charging my wife wanted to try it out. So I let her 
mow
another 1/4 acre. The middle mower stopped. It was a loose connection. Then
she continued, until she ran the batteries dead. I had to bring a cord out
to revive it. Let it charge for 2 hours then drove it into the garage to
charge all night. During the time it was charging in the field I checked
some things out. Unfortunately I found that I had once again shorted out
diodes 402 and 403. I replaced them while it was charging (I bought a bag 
of
25 diodes for 6 bucks). When they short you lose your upper speeds. I
haven't figured out why yet.

Anyway, it was a much anticipated, enjoyable moment. 

Stay Charged!

Hump