Re: (ET) High current in reverse - E20

[SteveS <ssawtelle fcc net>]

I  guess it's a common failure area - good to know. I replaced mine with 
some monster diodes I had laying around. One odd thing is how they put 
the varistor on board #3 with about 18" of wire going down to the 
contactor. I would think the varistor would be more effective if mounted 
right at the contactor.

- SteveS


Markus Lorch wrote:

> Steve, Chris,
>
> I had also the same issue. On my CC E20 reverse started to 
> pull too much current. Turned out I was loosing the field
> in reverse. It was also those diodes powering the
> fields and I had noticed a bad varistor at the same time.
> Replaced varistor and diodes (also with 6A rectifier
> version from radio shack) ... works fine ever since
>
> I agree with chris, I'd guess these diodes are stressed
> quite a bit from the spikes that occurr when breaking the
> armature current and if the varistor is bad in addition then
> they probably give after a couple of years.
>
> My other E20 (a BA model) had one of these diodes bad as
> well when I got it. 
>
> Markus
>
>