Hm. Could it be the edge connector on the big card 1? If the pins are
dirty or loose the opening and closing of the front panel there could
be allowing the tractor to work at random.
On my E15 I gave up on the long connector, cut the wires, and used a
nice big molex plug with wires soldered right to the card. The card
can come out if needed to fix, and the molex plug ensures a solid
connection no matter what.
C
On 10/22/2023 8:50 PM, Darryl McMahon wrote:
I can't match that story, but I did bring an E15 back to operating
condition today.
My E12 with plow and E15 with snowthrower both stopped working the
same day back in late February dealing with the aftermath of what
turned out to be the second last major snow storm of the season. (I
did not enjoy the last storm of the season at all.)
Both died at the bottom of the driveway. It's enough of a grade that
it takes two hearty folks working hard to push them up to the garage
for repairs. It's been a busy few months since, and I only got
seriously looking at getting back in operation for this coming winter
(and with sub-freezing weather expected tonight, that could be coming
any time now). Anyway, I put the E15 in the garage that day, and it
has stayed there until today.
When I had time over the past few months, I checked main connections
and a couple of other things without success. I opened the back panel
for the dash, and eventually found a centre tab on one of the reed
relays (not the forward-reverse relay) had broken off embedded in the
quick disconnect. Fiddled with that and put the connectors on the
other side of the 2-pole relay. Success. Machine moved under its own
power. Took it down the driveway to tow the E12 up to the garage.
Unpleasant day outside, so very disappointed when the E15 stopped
operating again once it was positioned to tow the E12. Went back
inside, changed to dry gear, and went out again to reopen the back
panel again. Everything looked fine, reseated all the connectors
again on the reed relay, and figured I would see if anything had
changed. Worked fine. Closed things up again and towed the E12 to
the garage and unhooked. Went to move the E15 again, and no go.
Opened things up, all looks good, but relay doesn't seem to be
opening and closing. Try powering up, and it works. Closed it up
and moved it to the side so there's room to work on the E12.
I don't trust self-healing tractors, I'm worried this one will leave
me stranded, and the open up and close again trick won't be any fun
me in mid-winter, even if the E15 is having a good time at my expense.
All best,
On 2023-10-22 5:09 p.m., Chris Zach via Elec-trak 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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Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
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