tiistai 4. maaliskuuta 2014

Trials and tribulations

I'll spare you the pictures this time. I took some, but it all came apart, literally, so I won't show them.

But let's start quasi-chronogically with the throttle. Remember my last report on the throttle sucess. It wasn't quite as rosy in the end. In fact, the first time I tried the throttle, with the motor installed in the car, it started up fine, but when I let go of the throttle the motor would just idle. You can imagine my amazement at this point. After some less than careful measurements I knew that the TPS gave a nice 0.49V when first plugged in, just as it should, but when I had turned the throttle it wouldn't drop back to the same voltage, but 1.09 volts instead! Oh no. I don't need to order a new cruve from picoamps do I?

Well, no. I don't. It's more interesting than that. Turns out I have a frame leak. Also turns out it is not the motor, which was my first suspect. I felt pretty lucky about that, since I had just gone through some huge trouble getting it into the car again. But it did turn out to be pin 3 on the AXE7245 controller. Pin 3 is Throttle 2, or throttle ground. It leaks pack voltage. Not cool. I've contacted AXE and we'll see what they come up with. I'm afraid it's going to turn out to be a feature. I'm guessing this causes the throttle problems too.


I know I promised no pictures. So I lied. Here's the motor going in. Again. And as you can see, it does have a clutch on it. It was quite a hassle to get it in. Notice the white stuff on the ground. It's snow. Didn't like that either. I was kind of hoping we'd be done with that stuff, but alas, no such luck.

The clutch wasn't a complete success either. It felt ok. Turns out it doesn't release. Not completely anyway. Oh, well. We'll see if I'll do something about it or just leave it like that for now. But the worst part is that I spent a considerable amount of time making a better support for the motor. It still wasn't strong enough and snapped loose. Damn those electric motors are strong.

I had filled the gearbox with new oil and was going back forth in the yard. Until there was a bang. Opening the hood revealed a motor well misplaced from it's usual location. Luckily just somewhat lower than expected. I'll have to go back to the drawing board on that one. The throttle problem and unexpected idling had gone away at this point, but the frame leak remained, so it may come back.

I was also concerned my main contactor had welded itself closed, but it seems that it just wasn't happy being on it's side. Turning it back the right way seemed to solve the issue. Or maybe it was something else in the first place. Anyway, it's working again now.

Update: AllTrax came back with a reply and suggestion to isolate the throttle input. I guess it does connect pin 3 and battery negative internally. It would have been nice of them to mention this somewhere. Anyhow, I put one of these little DC/DC converters on order and we'll see if I can use it power the TPS without causing a nasty frame leak:

http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00D1GQA5O/ref=pe_386171_38075861_TE_item


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