Re: (ET) crap - started mowing, and lost forward speeds

[Michael S Briggs <msbriggs alberti unh edu>]

Thanks for the tips from everyone (haven't had a chance to read all of 
them yet, since the classes I'm teaching had 5 hours of lecture today - 
bleah). A quick update though:
	I found *where* the problem is, and was able to finish mowing. 
There's apparently a loose connection somewhere either on the panel that 
card 1 is on, or on one of the wires that connects to it. When I took out 
the screws and tilted that panel out to start debugging, with the tractor 
in neutral (seat switch bypassed), as soon as I pushed the speed switch 
forward, the motor started spinning, instead of the weird behavior I was 
getting. I closed the panel up, hopped back on, and tried driving - same 
weird behavior again. I found that wiggling that panel around I could get 
it into a position where it worked fine. So, apparently some wire 
connecting to the panel has a flaky connection, that is apparently 
creating a short (I think) at times.
	I was able to finish mowing, but definitely don't want to leave it 
like this, so I'll need to find the flaky connection.
	I can take a picture tonight of where I *think* it is, but want to 
find out if it seems reasonable. There's two relays over on what would be 
the passenger's side of that panel, just behind the speed switch. What do 
those relays control? I'm guessing one is the forward/reverse switch?
	One of the wires connecting to one of those relays had a wire 
spliced in, that looks like a bad connection waiting to happen (and 
wiggling that wire around, it seems like it was sometimes braking the 
connection there, using my multimeter to measure the resistance on 
opposite ends of that connection). So, I'm guessing that's the source of 
the problem.

	Also, I was not happy with how well the Gator Blades worked. But, 
I'll address that in another email in a minute....

Thanks,
Mike

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Michael S. Briggs
UNH Physics Department
(603) 862-2828
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