(ET) Cheap Chinese Contactors (another fail)

[Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com>]

So as a part of fall I've finally gotten to the point where I needed to 
hook up the leaf vacuum. As I wrote about last year, I got tired of 
torching the AMP plugs by plugging and un-plugging it so I went with a 
36 volt contactor and ran a hot wire from the front contactor enable 
signal to the back of the tractor. Now the mower switch fires both 
contactors, and the rear blower connects in.

Today I hooked it up, turned it on, nothing. Contactor clicks, no motor. 
Tried cycling it a bunch of times and blower came on, but it's really 
intermittent. So after being annoyed for awhile and on a charge cycle I 
decided to take a look at what was going on.

First I didn't have a spare as I replaced a contactor on the E15 with my 
spare (also a shiny new one that was only a few years old). Pulled it, 
replaced it with a Club Car contactor (fortunately it's 36 volts), did 
another battery charge of leaf vacuuming (the vacuum+drive motor+deck is 
one hell of a current draw esp with only two strings since I can't use 
the external pack) and while it was charging opened the errant contactor.

What. Complete. Garbage! The disc that goes up against the bolts inside 
the contactor was dirty and pitted and oxidized. It appears to be steel 
that was maybe copper plated? The bolts *are* copper or at least a thick 
plating but overall this thing has the quality of trash.

So... I haven't cut open an old contactor because I didn't need to but I 
think these may be 36 volt 1 amp relays, not real contactors and are 
thus good for maybe a season? Sad, but oh well. I guess I'll see if 
Harold has any real contactors, I'd rather have a good used one than 
garbage.

Or we start using old Club Car contactors.

C