Intermittent Issue with the Black Beauty

[coosa]

I put this cart together a couple of years ago with a whole lot of help from the members of this forum. JohnnieB dubbed her the Black Beauty and the name has stuck. She is 2002 PDS, and I put an Altrax PDS500 controller on it and upgraded everything except the motor, which is still stock. She lives on dirt and stays on my farm that is 90 miles away from my house. So I use her a lot on my trips there, but she frequently sits under the shed for 2 weeks all alone.

I had never a moments problem with her until the past couple months. I got on it one day and it would only run half speed; it felt just like a cart in reverse with the half speed setting turned on. It ran fine, but only half speed. I suspected the batteries didn't charge properly, but they showed 38.1 volts. There was a bit of corrosion on the cables, so I took them off and cleaned everything and she immediately ran fine. A couple more times after that episode I had the exact same thing happen. Taking the cables loose and cleaning them fixed it.

But the cables never were that bad, and by the third time I wasn't really cleaning anything. I began to suspect a controller problem, and taking the power off it was causing it to reset and run normally. This past weekend, I went thru the same thing again, only this time taking the cables off and cleaning had no effect. I took all the wiring connections for the controller apart and sprayed electronic cleaner into each connector and that made it run normally.

I am thinking there are 2 possibilities as to what is wrong - 1 is that sitting unused for days at a time causes some of the connectors to slightly corrode and a little cleaning is needed to cause the controller to get all the signals it needs to run normally. I am hoping that is the problem. The only other possibility I can think of is that the issue is with the controller itself, and its about to go bad on me.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

[coosa]

I got 53 views and no response. I know that you guys would tell me if you knew, so I'm guessing this is an unusual problem and nobody really knows what might be the problem. The cart ran perfectly this past weekend, so I am really hoping that cleaning all the connectors fixed it

Do any of you smart guys think my assumption was correct and it's either corrosion on connections, or an issue with the controller? This is a really great cart for my purposes and I want to keep in good condition.

Thanks for any help.

[JohnnieB]

I just saw this post.

Intermittent problems are a bear to troubleshoot since the only time you can troubleshoot is while the cart is misbehaving.

We are starting to have warm days with cool nights, so condensation is getting heavier and a PDS cart with a DCX controller in it has about double the number of connections that can corrode than a straight PDS cart has, plus tracing the wires through the PDS to DCX adapter is akin to tracing a single noodle through a plate of spaghetti.

When the cart is misbehaving, check for the LED on the controller blinking an error code.

-----------
Carry a handheld DVM with you and a couple clip-leads.

What is the voltage between controller's B- and B+ terminals when cart misbehaves?

Between M- and B+ terminals with pedal on floor while cart is misbehaving?

-----------
Check for worn insulation on F1&F2 wire where they are routed around batteries. (see picture)

---------

If it does end up being a bad controller, replace it with a XCT48400PDS or XCT48500PDSD. Much better controller than a DCX.


Also - What is battery pack voltage?

[mgray70]

I was working on one last night with the same problem and the same solution. One of the pins in connector at the controller was corroded a little. I cleaned it and its running normal now. Maybe that's both of our problems.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

[mutant]

i use CRC marine heavy duty corrosion inhibitor on all my connections and i think the stuff is fantastic...this might help extend the service interval between corrosion cleaning....

it certainly sounds like you have may have a resistance problem or some electric gremlin-good luck hunting it down! keep black beauty rolling!....sure dosent seem that long since you built her.....

[coosa]

Thanks for all the replies. I just fired her up after she sat under the shed since last Saturday and she runs perfectly. I'm gonna hope that it was just a corrosion issue in one of those connections at the controller. After 16 years of running a resistor cart, this one makes me smile every time I put the pedal to the metal. :)

A good day to all!