2015 Fried electricals from charger

pr3

I was going away for about 2 months and decided to put a charger on my 2015
gas EFI Yamaha. I put on a 10 amp electronic car charger with clamps to the battery terminals. When the charger ramped up, there was smoke and smell from the solenoid and voltage regulator(?) area on the frame above and behind the starter/generator. The smoke was white and the smell was something burning. It lasted for about 1 full second. It did not sound or act like a fuse blowing. I pulled the charger clamps off. As I was leaving within the hour, I removed the battery terminal connections and left.

First, I am quite certain that I connected the battery charger correctly. The wire colors are fairly obvious on the battery. I also believe that my charger is pretty 'smart' and would have thrown a fault code if it was hooked up wrong. Finally, the battery was fully charged and probably would not have 'sent' current in the wrong direction.

So, I get back home and look the electricals over. I see nothing obviously fried. I remove the black plastic looming from all the wire bundles going to the solenoid and voltage regulator (or is that the computer?) and see no fried wires. I pull apart all the connectors and see nothing burned. I see no burning on any fixed connections. I see no burn on either the solenoid or the voltage regulator(?). I see nothing burned on the generator/ starter.

I check all the fuses and they are good. I check all the grounds and nothing there.

So, I turn the key on and it boots up. I go for a drive and it works fine. I put a voltage meter on the battery. It is 12.6 before I start any of this. It is 15.6 while driving. It is 13.3 when I get home.

So, what happened?? I am worried that I have a wire someplace with the insulation burned off just waiting to short out. Or, I have fried something that is not obvious.

Thoughts?

BGW

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Prowlerguy1

Well Pr3,

That's a tough one to diagnose after the fact, on a forum.

However, I will say that you did all the things that I would have done, after the incident happened. You inspected all the wiring connectors and components for visible signs of damage - that was great place to start with.

The next logical step would have been to turn the cart on and see if it acted normally, which you did.

The test drive with the voltmeter on the battery indicates that the starting/charging system seems to be working normally - at least based off of the voltages that you reported.

I can't think of anything that would cause a problem from attaching a battery charger, that your cart's generator wouldn't do - such as place a higher voltage on the system or inject a higher current to charge the battery. The S/G could and probably would do both more voltage and current than a charger.

There is a chance that you're having a component fail, but because you're driving and moving while the S/G is charging (versus stationary for a charger) you just didn't notice the smoke and smell???.

Have you been driving the cart? Is it continuing to function correctly?

If there is a component that is failing, it's probably gonna fail. Regardless, of whether it's caused by the carts generator or a charger. I guess, if it were mine, I'd just drive it and expect a failure. Once it does, you'll know what to fix. If it doesn't - it's anyone's guess what cause the symptoms you observed.

Sorry, but at this point, that's about the best insight I can provide you to try to help.

Regards,
Todd

pr3

Todd-- Thanks for your support. I had not thought of an ongoing issue that I just happened to see.

In the meantime, I have driven it about 4 miles. This morning the voltage was still up on the battery. I have an impedance Cold Cranking Amp meter. Yesterday, it had the battery at 500cca, today it is at 550cca.

As I looked at the wiring diagram, my thought was that if I had put the battery charger on backwards, it would have gone to the voltage regulator first and maybe fried it. So, I pulled the voltage regulator off and looked at the epoxy on the backside expecting to see melt, burn, or something. It looked new. The epoxy was perfect and it did not smell like burned electrical components.

I also checked for the 6 ohms at the starter/ generator exciter field and found that. Then I checked continuity of the green wire.

I guess my only last thought is that I did fry the voltage regulator and it fried in the 'closed' position thus exciting the generator constantly. But you would expect more volts coming from it than the number I am seeing. I will keep an eye on the battery overcharging.

So, whether it is an ongoing issue that I did not see before, or my frying something, I will sit back and hope for the best but keep watch for some sort of frank failure. At least then I will know what is wrong with it and not start throwing parts at something that 'ain't broke'.

Prowlerguy1

It's not unusual for a battery to gain a little starting capacity. It's the same effect as when you run a battery down trying to start a car. If you leave it sit for 10 mins, you can usually get it to crank the engine on last time. I think its a phenomenon caused by the battery achieving chemical equilibrium of some kind.

Which wiring diagram is it? Is it available online? I wasn't sure which model cart you had...the Drive? Generally, the power signal that is sent to get the V/R to start regulating is controlled by both the key switch and the pedal switch. However, on the 4 wire solid state V/R's there is a power wire to the V/R that comes off the starter relay on the downstream side. By your description, this does seem to be a solid state V/R. So, chances of power even getting to the V/R by ONLY putting a charger on it are slim.

Here, the argument for power getting to the coil is the same. It only happens with the key switch on, pedal pushed AND the V/R "telling" power to flow through the excitation field. I don't see this being affected simply by placing a charger on the battery.

Possible, but I'm more inclined to say that if the V/R was damaged, you wouldn't see any charging at all. When solid state devices "let the smoke out", or "fry", it generally causes the circuit to "open" and not allow any current flow - not always, but it's most often the case. If this is not a solid state V/R, then closed contacts is a possibility.

The ONLY component that I've seen in any Yamaha circuit diagrams that get power all the time (thru the fuse) is the backup buzzer. Is your buzzer still working?

Please post if anything changes.
Regards,
Todd

pr3

Prowler-- Thanks for weighing in.

I have a new 2015 Gas EFI Drive PTV. I am looking at the correct online wiring diagram. It shows the computer. I was afraid that somehow I had fried the computer.

I mentioned the higher amps in the battery to point out that the charging system seems to be working.

Indeed, just about everything only gets power with the key on. The key was OFF when I connected the charger. That is partly why I am thinking that maybe I did put the charger on wrong, then maybe I sent 12 volts positive to the V/R but thru the ground wire, then maybe it found a path thru the V/R to the frame ground....or something like that. It is a 3 wire type. The key sends the volts to the thing, then if they are low, the V/R grounds the green wire to energize the generator.

The back up buzzer was disconnected long before any of this. So, no power would have gotten to it with the connector dis-connected.

I ordered a cigarette lighter digital volt meter from Amazon and will get it tomorrow. My plan is to plug it in and monitor the charging system as I use the cart.

I had a crazy thought to put the battery charger back on and see if it happens again, this time with the rear hatch removed to watch what is happening, but that doesn't sound smart.

cgtech

The "batteey equilibrium" thing is true. When i first start a load test, it is most common to see the voltage drop, then come back up about .3v when the batteries "get their flow on". As far as the charger reverse polarity thing goes, the battery would have to be super low for the charger to be able to instantly reverse the polarity. The battery typically would "win" the battle against a 10a charger (charger amp rate not specified).

pr3

cg--

I too would think that the 'battery would win'. The reversed polarity thing is just me grasping at straws for an answer.

I have driven it another 5 miles or so, and still see no ill effects.

All just very, very odd.

kgsc

Most newer chargers have polarity protection so I would think the charger would not have come on if it was backwards. As for the smoke I wonder if there was a bad connection on the battery and the charger found another ground or power path through another connection.

pr3

So I have been driving around for a few days with the digital volt meter plugged into the cigarette lighter.

Everything seems very well behaved. The battery starts off, before heading out, at between 12.2 and 12.5 depending on how long it has been sitting. At speed, it varies between 15.0 and 15.5. It seems to be a little lower after I have driven it for 10 minutes or so.

So, I really like the digital volt meter for assessing the charging while driving.

It seems that I did not 'fry' anything (altho, I still don't know where the smoke came from). The generator and battery seem to be behaving well and I can't see any issues.

I will move on to some other obsession. Thanks for everyone's help.