RE: (ET) Need a crash course in basic electric vehical 101

[Humphrey Timothy H Contr AFRL/IFEC <Timothy Humphrey rl af mil>]

If I recall correctly....it's been a few years.

The accelerator is just a switch. In this case maybe two switches. The 
other
of course is the normally open contacts. I have seen these switches fail.
However you say you have played swaptronics to no avail. Time to ohm out 
the
wiring harness. Doesn't this have a two speed switch. It takes two 
batteries
doesn't it. Most of the dual motor setups I've seen also had two speeds and
two batteries.

The motors are good, that's a plus. Check the wires for continuity. You can
also check the switches with your ohmmeter.

Stay Charged!
Hump

Alternately, I read somewhere about these Curtis 275amp controllers for
cheap.... ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Roy Vanderhoef [mailto:Roy Vanderhoef verizon net] 
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 12:56 AM
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: (ET) Need a crash course in basic electric vehical 101



Hi every body, I think I am in serious need of a crash course in Basic
Electric Vehicle 101.  My daughter has a little power wheels 4 wheeler that
is not working.  I thought it should be pretty simple to trouble shoot,
simply with a 12 volt battery charger and a MM.  The wire is as follows.

There are two motors, both wired to turn the same direction when you step 
on
the accelerator. There is a accelerator pedal and a forward/Reveres lever.
No on/off switch.  Using the charger I can get both motors to run in both
directions by simply jumping the charger to the motor feed wirers and
reversing them for the other direction.  That is about all I can tell you.
I do not understand how the accelerator or the directional lever is suppose
to work and how to trouble shoot it.  I can tell you this the directional
lever has two 6 lead plugs going to it, both motor have both of the leads 
in
these 2 plugs.  The accelerator has a single plug with 3 wires, two wires
come from the 2 plugs on the directional control and the other is a jump
from one of the wires with a resistor in the jump.

I have a second vehicle for the other daughter, that is working.  I swapped
out the directional lever, with no luck,  I "kind of" swapped out the
accelerator switch with no luck.  I say "Kind of the resistor is wired in 
to
the wiring harness of the vehicle, The wire on the resistor on the bad car
broke, so I swapped the switch and then jumped the wire to the good
resistor.