(ET) Pressure washer odd fail and thoughts....

[Christopher Zach <cz alembic crystel com>]

So this morning I went to the shed, got my Elec-trak pressure washer, 
and rolled it over to the cars. Hooked it up, plugged it into the E15's 
mower port, fired it up and...

Nothing.

At first I thought the PTO was mis-wired on the Elec-trak but sure 
enough it's fine. Then I found that the new 36 volt contactor on the 
pressure washer wasn't working; it had 36 volts across the coil but was 
not pulling in.

So I pulled it and replaced it with an old contactor I had. Worked 
perfectly, washer came up, and I happily washed 4 cars on a single 
string of BB600's at mostly full charge.

I wonder what went wrong with the contactor; maybe I'll pull it apart 
and take a look.

In the meantime I love having the pressure washer; this was a project 
last year where I took the 5hp gas engine off a 1500 PSI Gentech washer, 
and replaced it with an E12 shunt wound motor. Shaft fit right in, just 
needed to build a mounting platform. I set it up with a local switch for 
control that turns on and off a contactor.

It really works. And it really pulls a fair bit of power; but the E12 
motor handles it well. Since it's a shunt wound it tried to maintain a 
constant speed, which makes for a very even pressure at the wand.

I like it.

Chris