Bought this beauty today

[coosa]

The guy didn't charge me anything extra for the 2-tone colors; that's mildew from it sitting outside since November. Its a 2002 PDS and I'm gonna try to fix it up to become my farm buggy to replace the old resistor cart I had. The cart belonged to a gentlemen who passed away in November and I was told the cart has been sitting since. Guy told me the batteries were dead, but replacing them and the cables were all I'd have to do to get it to run.

Not true. I got it home and used some 10 gauge wire to jump from the battery pack of my cart to see if it would power up. It wouldn't, so I checked the solenoid and found that the solenoid resistor was not even hooked up on one side, so somebody has been trying to work on it. I pulled the solenoid out; is there a test to see if it will work?

Now I'm afraid that someone could have fried the controller or motor while messing with the solenoid. I am planning to upgrade the controller, but didn't want to replace the motor. I'd like to see it move before buying all these components. I'm also concerned it could have gotten moved around in Run mode. The batteries were absolutely dead; would it damage the controller or motor to push it in Run mode with dead batteries?

I was told a charger came with it, but didn't get to see it until the cart was loaded and was on the way home. Gotta love this repair:



The frame looks good, but the battery racks turned out to be pretty bad after I removed the old batteries. I'm thinking this is the time to replace them.

I enjoy having a project; gotta feeling I'm gonna regret tackling this one. At least it was cheap. As always, any advice from you smart folks will be appreciated.

[yurtle]

The charger is easy to repair. Simply open it up, discharge the capacitor by connecting both posts together with a screwdriver, being careful not to touch the metal while doing so, and wear safety glasses. Eliminate the wire nuts and the short portion of cord. Pay attention to where the three wires inside go before removing them. Photos are great for this. You'll probably need to crimp on some spade connectors. At the very least, you can move the wire nuts inside the charger. The plastic piece that holds the cable in the front face of the charger is removable. If you've never messed with these before, look all the way around the front of the plastic piece and you'll find a "separate" piece that's approx. 1/4" wide. Simply squeeze it with pliers and gently pull the whole plastic piece outwards. You may need to wiggle it a little. From your pic, it looks like it's at the 12 O'clock position, so you'd squeeze it at 6 and 12 O'clock.

Did you try and charge the cart? You may need to charge the batteries with a car battery charger to get them up enough for the Powerwise to work. Those batteries are likely shot, but they may hold enough juice to help troubleshoot.

If they are completely shot...

Place both carts in Tow, try disconnecting the negative battery cable from the old battery pack. Try jumping it again, but connect the negative from your good battery pack to the cable you just removed. Do this with your "new" cart on jack stands. It's possible the "new" pack was so dead it was drawing your "good" pack down. Kinda like trying to jump start a car, the dead car battery pulls so much power from the other car, it sometimes takes a while. Your good cart can stay in Tow while you do this.

See if the controller powers up. I have a series, but as I understand it, if your controller doesn't power up, your solenoid isn't going to do anything.

[coosa]

Thanks yurtle; great info as always! I have never tried to repair a charger and would not have known how to remove that plastic piece. I'm planning to takes the wire nuts off and make sure the connections are secure enough to test, and then plug it up to my 2008 cart just to see if it will work. I'll fix the cord then if it will.

I did pretty much what you suggested on testing the cart. There were no cables on the batteries; they had already been removed and are unusable. Seeing that they were removed made me suspect someone has already tried to repair the cart.

I put both carts in tow mode and used the posts of 2 of the dead batteries to make the connection. I had 38.6 volts at the battery side of the solenoid, but never got it to click. I wasn't sure of the polarity of the small wires, so I didn't test them. I don't understand why they can't mark them, but they don't. I've since found out the positive is the yellow wire on the left.

Since the solenoid is now out of the cart, can't I test it by running 36 volts to the small terminals? Shouldn't it click if its good?

I've already removed all the batteries and am trying to charge them with a 12 volt charger to use for testing. If I can't get them to charge, is there a safe way to test the motor using the voltage from the other cart? I'd just like to see it turn before I order everything.

Thanks again for the help.

[yurtle]

Originally Posted by coosa

Since the solenoid is now out of the cart, can't I test it by running 36 volts to the small terminals? Shouldn't it click if its good?

I've already removed all the batteries and am trying to charge them with a 12 volt charger to use for testing. If I can't get them to charge, is there a safe way to test the motor using the voltage from the other cart? I'd just like to see it turn before I order everything.

Thanks again for the help.

Remove the diode from the solenoid, then there is no positive or negative. The solenoid doesn't care. The diode does. If it clicks, you can check for continuity between the two large posts. They should read near zero ohms when the solenoid is activated and near infinite ohms when it's not.

There is a relatively safe way to check a series motor with 12, 18 or 24 volts. I'm not sure about a sepex motor. You might have to power it from your good cart. You can either run four wires from one buggy to the other, or swap the motor. Buggy motors don't have two bearings, so you can't really bench test them. You can do a continuity check between the two sets of windings. There are two rotor terminals and two stator terminals. You should have continuity across both sets, but high resistance between the two sets. Rotor is called armature and stator is called field. Not sure what the label says on yours, but you get the point.

[yurtle]

Does the controller on your new cart have LEDs? If so, did they light up when you jumped it? Also, did the reverse beeper beep when in reverse?

[JohnnieB]

Carts Unlimited (scottyb) has a pretty good graphic for testing a series motor, so I changed it a bit for a Sepex motor.

For sepex motor (aka shunt wound), you connect the armature and field windings in parallel and apply voltage to them.

18V might be a little much for the field windings, so I'd try 6V or 12V first.

Also, jack the rear wheels off ground so the tires spin in the air rather than trying to move cart with it connected that way.

------------
If the stock PDS motor is good, toss a DCX400 (or larger) controller, 400A/1000A solenoid, 4Ga cables (or thicker) and seven 6V batteries in it and you'll have a wicked cart to run around the farm in.

[coosa]

Originally Posted by yurtle

Does the controller on your new cart have LEDs? If so, did they light up when you jumped it? Also, did the reverse beeper beep when in reverse?

I can't find any lights and nothing lit up when I put power to it. The old fellow used the buggy in hunting and the reverse beeper is gone. Nothing happened at all when I put power to it before. I'll try to test the solenoid and motor today, if my wife will let me escape all the yard work she has planned.

JohnnieB, thanks for the diagram. Even I could understand it.

[coosa]

Solenoid checks out fine when 36 volts are applied to the small terminals. Since the solenoid would not click when 36 volts was applied to the cart, I'm thinking of just 3 possible problems:

1) Whoever worked on it before left off a wire, or

2) The panel switch is bad, or

3) Controller is fried and is not sending current to the solenoid.

Have I missed something? I was hoping the solenoid was bad, but not to be. I'm planning to order one Scotty's controller kits and set it up similar to the other cart, but I'd still love to see it move.

JohnnieB, I set everything up for the motor test and it occurred to me that was a good place for me to fry the motor. Does it matter what size wire I use to connect the armature and field windings? I made some jumpers out of size 10 house wire and some battery clips; will that be ok?

You may not wanta answer this, but the diagram calls for using a battery cutoff switch. I don't have a suitable switch handy, and was gonna use jumper cables. That's when I decided I might better stop and ask. I suppose it could arc when I stick the cable to the battery; not worried about the old battery or the jumper cables, but is there a chance it could do something to the motor?

Thanks!

[yurtle]

The test is pretty much a quick "does it work" test. If it spins in one direction, it works. No need to test it in both directions. As to size of wire, 10 should be fine for a quick test. As to the switch, you can use jumper cables, but I would run a wire from the battery and make the final connection to that wire. This prevents the spark from damaging the post, and more importantly, gets the spark away from the batteries, which give off hydrogen gas when charging or discharging.

[coosa]

Many thanks again, yurtle. The motor lives. I ran the test using an old 12 volt marine battery and let it turn the wheels about 3 seconds.

I've ordered a new battery rack and gonna order one of Scotty's kits with the HD solenoid and a 500 controller, so I'm not all that concerned about the controller on there now. Still, I'd love to find out why there is no power to the solenoid except from the battery side.