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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