melted wires and lots of smoke

thetoddjohnson

Yesterday I let the magic smoke out of my ’94 DS. I’m not sure what happened so it isn’t clear to me how to trouble shoot it. Here’s what happened:

I’m getting ready to replace the batteries and cables. When I do so I plan to go from 36V to 48V. In preparation for that move I upgraded the solenoid yesterday. (I used an HD one I got from ScottyB.)

After making the swap the cart would not move. Stepping on the pedal (in either F or R) would create an audible click but that click did not seem to come from the solenoid but from the v-glide (or something very near the v-glide).

As I said I’m planning on replacing the batteries and cables because they are not in great shape. I assumed that the problem was a loose battery cable or a very corroded battery terminal. (For awhile now this cart had been experiencing the same click-but-no-go problem occasionally. Poor cable connections seemed to always be the cause of the issue, so I just assumed it was the same problem.)

So I spent some time cleaning the worst corroded terminals and I replaced 2 of the battery cables. I then tried to drive the cart again. At first it simply did the click-no-go, but after a few tries the smoke came out!!!!! I was looking at the road in front of the cart (as one normally does when attempting to drive), so I wasn’t looking at the guts of the cart. Therefore I did not see where the problem happened and I don’t know if there was any visible arcing. My first instinct was that the problem originated at the solenoid because I must have wired it wrong, so that’s where I looked.

To my surprise I found that most of the small gauge wires (reverse buzzer, ignition wires, etc.) that are zip-tied together near the solenoid are melted. Some of the melted wires are ones that I hadn’t even touched.

It is clear that way more current than should ever go through those wires went through them. Does anybody have any idea what happened?

BGW

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Sergio

If the melting is on a small portion of those wires instead of the entire length, perhaps the pre-charge resistor got hot due to the Solenoid not activating and it melted the wires that were near.

thetoddjohnson

That's as good a theory as anything I can come up with. Thanks Sergio.

I've got some wiring work to do. The wiring diagram in the stickies for the '94 DS isn't nearly as nice as some of the other wiring diagrams. Does anyone--cough cough, Crash, cough cough-- have a nice color coded wiring diagram? (This cart has a v-glide and a controller.)

tag50

If a certain party doesn't come through for you, you can find it here-

FSIP (sponsor page)-
"support" tab-
"golf cart" tab-
"wiring diagrams" tab-
"FS1992-1994"

I'd give you a link, but I'm the village computer idiot. And don't tell Crash, 'cause you know...he's...well....."special".


.

Sergio

This is the one I have for a 36v - Controller w/ Multistep (Vglide):

http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/attac...ire_vglide.jpg

jjance

You put the diode on the solenoid in the wrong direction. The band should go to the positive. But you probably can't tell the banded end now.

thetoddjohnson

If having the diode backward would cause that behavior then that is probably what happened. I've been a dumbass before, so it certainly may have happened again. But I really don't think I did it wrong. I was extremely careful because of the instructions that ScottyB had included with the solenoid. I specifically remember laughing at his humorous, and thorough instructions about making sure the diode was placed properly.

thetoddjohnson

Okay. I got back to the beach today and had a chance to look at the cart. I figured out what happened. When I tightened the nut on the large post on the positive side of the solenoid the wire under the nut rotated clockwise. The ring terminal on the wire has a metal cuff that is long enough that it made contact with the small post on the positive side of the solenoid. See the attached photo.

When the solenoid activated a tremendous amount of current went through the wire that goes from the small post to the lug on the controller that also has a wire that goes to the negative end of the battery bank. The small wire couldn't take the current and melted. Since that wire was zip tied to a bunch of other small wires those other wires also melted some.

Shockingly the diode and the resistor on the solenoid appear to still be okay. I'll replace the melted wires and see if that is all that was damaged.

TJ

Attached Images

contact.jpg (334.8 KB, 0 views)

crash test dummy

someone should of pm'ed me

Attached Images

v glide controlor.jpg (83.2 KB, 0 views)