On Oct 22, 2023, at 2:10 PM, Chris Zach via Elec-trak <elec-trak cosmos phy
tufts edu> wrote:
So my E15 burned down the BB600 pack of 30 cells about a decade ago and
pretty much sat in my yard. Cause of death was the timer not stopping the charge
(broke) and over a weekend the charger dried out the cells then went into thermal
runaway and fused the batteries.
Last year I pulled out the old pack, put 30 spares into it, but it wasn't
running. And so I dragged it to a corner of the yard with the E20 and left
it. This fall I decided to see if anything would work so I went out this
weekend and did a LOT of troubleshooting.
The problems:
The F3 fuse was not making contact. Cleaned up the fuse holder with a
brass brush, put fuse in, had power across the fuse.
Brake switch is shot. Bypassed it with a wire nut for now. Brakes are
totally frozen anyway.
With that I got power with key on to pins 1 with PTO off and 2 with PTO
on. Bonus, the PTO contactor clicked in, so I know seat switch (bypassed)
and key switch are working. Good.
Checked pin 6, nothing. Put tractor in speed 1, still nothing. Start
switch connector fell off, removed throttle, cleaned everything, used a
bit of tuner cleaner for lube, put it together, motor spins! But badly.
Tightened up armature bolts and CB1 lugs, tightened up the tension on the
two belts (yes this E15 has a 2 belt sheave and transmission. It's smaller
than an E20 motor so it's not a motor swap) fired it up and the tractor
moved forward. Even better putting it in reverse causes it to move
backwards.
Can't steer, so got out the grease gun and lubed the steering joints.
Steers with great difficulty but it's getting better slowly.
Still only running in speed 1 till I advance the throttle far forward then
field weakening comes on. I'm guessing 1a and 2a coils are not working,
may be a problem with the IC board. Need to check that out.
One rear tire flat, filled it, will see if it holds. One front tire good,
one the sidewall dry rotted so need to replace that.
Overall it's kind of a mess, but at least things seem to be sort of
working. Going to have to figure out why 1a/2a are down (is 4 to 10
closing? 11 to 13?) but I'll work on that next weekend.
Need to think about what to do. I guess I could get a diode assembly, fix
the wreck of a charger that came out of my E20 and put it in this one. I
would so much prefer a big 60 amp constant voltage charger though to give
3 strings of NiCDs a proper charging...
Poor old thing. I got it like 20 years ago from a guy who had it rotting
in the woods behind his house. Part of the frame had disintegrated at the
rear transmission lug so I welded angle iron and basically build a new
frame. It will never mount a rear accessory but the tow bar is intact....
Still, it continues to run and I don't have the heart to scrap it. :-)
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