Re: (ET) Card 4 status, might work, hm.

[Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com>]

On 9/12/2010 12:58 AM, David Roden wrote:
> Yikes.

Oh come on, that's nothing really. And it's not Apollo era technology, 
it's Gemini era technology at best :-)

On a more serious note, the big advantage of the stock controller over 
an Altrax is that it *can* be repaired. Sure an Altrax works now, but in 
20 years will it still be fix-able? Is it even fix-able, or is 
everything in there potted?

I have an Aprila Enjoy bike with motor and a really nice controller. 
However it flaked out, the controller is potted so my chances of fixing 
it are pretty much *zero* right now. And getting another controller is 
not going to happen...

I use my E20 constantly, and it almost never flakes out. Right now the 
big problem is that the high speeds are locked out and I bypassed that 
with little effort. Once I replace the transistors it should work fine 
again. The problems with the shunt are my doing; I didn't put it back 
together properly, used sub-rated lugs, and to be honest I was pulling 
close to 400a last winter when I was running the snowblower in 2 feet of 
snow uphill.

E15's are somewhat more complicated, however I wonder if the problem was 
that the capacitors for timing going into reverse are going into the 
fritz. In which case replacing those should bring the controller back 
into order for another 40 years.

At which time we will probably still be able to buy caps at Radio Shack.


Chris