Burning down the cart....or Scotty to the rescue!

[nutsehc]

Last Thursday, my boss ( and best friend) decided to join me for golf and beer. He brings me out a beer from the clubhouse as I take the cover off the cart and prep it for the days outing. He shows up with the beer, and I tell him "why don't you drive?" So, he hops up puts it in reverse and suddenly we have a fireworks show complete with fireworks and major arcing from the solenoid. These ignite the plastic flex tubing I have ensconced all the wiring in to keep from abrading, giving us a fire underneath the seat. Now, we are lucky enough to be close to a fire extinguisher, so we put it out, but not before it has cooked the wire loom, controller, solenoid and all aux. wiring. GRRREAT! So the next day we push up onto the trailer for its trip back to the house for a hopeful rebuild. Removing the roof, body seat,etc. I tear into it the next day and it is every bit as bad as we imagined. So , I yank the charred and melted solenoid, and controller, and set forth to trying to identify bits of the wiring loom. This is going to be a chore....to be continued....

[nutsehc]

Realizing that new parts are in order, and having read many glowing reviews of ScottyB's work we decide that he is our guy. Call him up explain our plight and we decide on an Alltrax SPM 48400 controller and heavy duty sloenoid for the fix. ( I had already ordered 2 gauge wirng and an OBC stud kit earlier so this would be the time to get them installed) Scotty gets them to me 2 days later, Yahoo! and I set out to rebuild. Mounted the controller in essentially original postion, get the solenoid in place, and commence to wiring. Having had to splice all the wiring harness the day prior, I had a very good working knowledge of where they all came form and needed to go to. Finishing, Hook up the batteries and....Nothing. E mail Scotty and tell him that I am not getting the solenoid to click, or getting any power through the controller and tell him I will call. He tells me to take a picture and send it to him so that we mighthave a more fruitful conversation. Good Idea! Call Alltrax and explin what is happening and someone directs me to the wrong page of the install manual, and even with my limited intelligence I can tell that something is not right. The manual is so small that it was hard to decipher so I downloaded it from the internet on 8 1/2 by 11 paper for ease of reading. I then realize that they are 2 diffferent diagrams that are labeled the same. to be continued....

[nutsehc]

One more call to Scotty who patiently listens to what I have done and tells me a couple of shortcuts to check things out. Bingo! Solenoid now clicks, and there is power through the controller! But now I have an error message that I cannot decipher. One more email to Scotty, (hoping that he hasn't jumped off a cliff because of my several call and emails,) and he gives me some more great info and tells me if that doesn't work to call Alltrax. No matter what I do I can not figure out what is up or get the software to down load on my computer, so I call them. One of their techs explains the issue to me, tells me that I am lucky to have purchased the SPM because it is self calibrating (THANX SCOTTY FOR THE GREAT CALL HERE!) and remotely installs the software on my computer. I hook up the computer to the controller and follow his instructions and Hallelujah!! The error message goes away leaving me with the wonderful solid green light of victory! (happy dance here) All I can say here is if you need a great mind and patient soul to go long with your upgraded parts, CALL SCOTTYB! Thanx Again!

[Shawn8202]

I will save the long story but I continue to have a few minor issues and Scotty B has been nothing but great with me.

Great thread and please keep us posted ..

Shawn