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I have finally been successful in the installation of the
Alltrax controller in my E-20 tractor. This has been a long process which
involved a few replacement units from Alltrax, and I want to share my results
with others who may be contemplating upgrading ET’s. The first 2
units that I installed were seemingly bad units and caused me to spend a
considerable amount of time in troubleshooting my tractor. This could be
a long story, but I will condense it to what I discovered on my particular
tractor. The first couple of units gave me an over voltage alarm, which
made no sense to me or to Alltrax themselves. The first units ended up
smoking on me and were replaced by Alltrax, no questions asked. Alltrax
also replaced a 3rd and 4th unit after I sent them a
diagram as to how I had my unit wired up. In the process of testing the 3rd
and 4th units, I noticed that the main drive motor was making a loud
noise and then the alltrax would fail. I pulled the motor and on a bench
test it appeared to be working, but very sluggish. I then paid for a 5th
unit from alltrax and spent the better half of this last holiday weekend
re-checking all my wiring end-to-end. I discovered that when I checked
continuity from the field motor connections F1 & F2 back to the controller
leads they seemed to be fine. I then took it one step farther and
actually disconnected the J6 connectors and retested for continuity. It
was then that I discovered that the connector output lead for pin # 36 had 2
wires coming out of it, even though the input side only had 1 wire. I
made the mistake of connecting both leads from this pin out source to the F1
& F2 field connections on the controller unit. Which now made sense
that continuity looked good from the controller to the motor, albeit on the
same lead. I made the correct wiring change for the # 62 pin and then ran
that to the F connector on the controller unit. Anxiety was killing me at this point, as I was prepared to
give this tractor up for a parts machine if I experienced another failed unit.
I have a second, previously converted tractor, that I used to connect its
controller to my E-20 motors connections to verify that the main drive motor
still functioned. This did work and the motor did indeed move, but
sounded loud. I then took the plunge and connected the new controller
unit back to the motor and fired it up. No over voltage this time, but
was getting a 1 red led function, i.e. Throttle position sensor error. I
quickly found that the wire in the Alltrax wiring connector was not making and
had to play around with it to ensure that all the leads were functional.
Tried power again and Yeah – I now had a solid green led and things look
normal. The controller is functioning and the drive motor does turn, but
it seems to be lacking power, even with the curtis switch all the way
down. Someone on this list mentioned in the past that a lack of power can
be caused by the field windings being degraded. I wonder if anyone else
has dealt with this kind of thing. Can these GE motors easily be rewound
at a shop? I do apologize for the length of this message, but if I can
prevent others from experiencing the same difficulties that I have endured it
is worth posting. Thanks, Bob K Robert
Kleinbrahm Senior
Network Engineer First
Republic Bank (415)
288-1478 rkleinbrahm firstrepublic com
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