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

["Roy Vanderhoef" <Roy Vanderhoef verizon net>]

Yes I checked the Batteries, and yes I did forget to mention that, it
was getting late :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Cohen [mailto:bond007d netsync net] 
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 12:23 PM
To: Roy Vanderhoef; elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Re: (ET) Need a crash course in basic electric vehical 101


Roy,

Dumb question, but did you check the batteries?  You didn't mention
that, and I assume you did, but did you check them with a load?
Sometimes batteries can test fine for voltage, when in fact they are bad
under load.  Also, many of those power wheels batteries have  fuses in
the tops of them.  Does yours, and did you check them?  The fact that
the motors run with the charger may indicate that 1 or both batteries
are just bad.  Of course, there certainly may be another issue here.

Good luck,
Don Cohen

At 12:55 AM 6/13/03 -0400, Roy Vanderhoef wrote:

>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.

Don Cohen
DC Electronics
Shinglehouse, PA