On 10/27/2011 2:04 PM, David Roden wrote:
One of the more memorable afternoons using the E15 was the one when I had to reverse the tractor by lifting the hood, tilting back the unscrewed relay panel, and manually engaging the reverse relay. That was the final straw. The Alltrax went in shortly after that, and the controller headaches went away.
Ok, I will have to agree after using this thing for a few weeks that the E15 is cool, but very sub-standard. I really am finding myself kind of liking the throttle, maybe it's because I don't need to keep my foot on the pedal (although the E20 has cruise control that makes that good). It's not intuitive, but I do kind of see the appeal.
As long as the brakes work.But the E15's control system is terrible compared to the E12 and E20. Reversing the field was probably the stupidest idea they could have come up with; I don't know who thought that one up but they should have been forced to carry the tillers to the dock. The E20's contactor reversing of the armature equals no problems, and if they do start to go you can simply flip and reverse them and get another 40 years of life.
So yeah, I can see why a poor befuddled E15 owner would say "That's enough" after burning up yet another relay. The fact that simply moving the throttle switches the relay is silly enough. If you're at speed 0 the field should be *off*, no exceptions.
Maybe that's one thing that killed the Elec-trak; once they started selling the cheap controllers they more than lost on the service calls and returned units. The E20 would have been a tank by comparison.
Ah well. Chris
This is not to say that the Alltrax is the only suitable controller or necessarily even the best. There are others. Almost any, with the possible exception of the really cheap Chinese sweatshop junk, would be more reliable than GE's 3-decade-old parts - and more pleasant to use, too. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to the "etpost" address will not reach me. To send me a private message, please use the address shown at the bottom of this page : http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Elec-trak mailing list Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/elec-trak