My First Fire

[robnhood]

i had my first fire yesterday, was upgrading my cables on my 96 ds and looks like i hooked up the controller wrong. (make sure your charger is not behind your cart when you have to push the cart off jack stands to get it out of your garage so you dont burn the house down) looks like a expensive mistake even though i was able to put the fire out and disconnect the batteries before the fire got the rest of the cart.

[Stevegrmich]

WOW . . . sure glad only the cart was damaged . . . could have been a lot worse being in the garage . . . do you remember what you did exactly that caused the fire so others can learn from your mistake?

[robnhood]

i put the wires on the controller backwards. the yellow from the solenoid and the green from A1 to controller were connected to the negative post on the controller and the negative from the battery through the obc was connected to the wrong side on the controller.

[robnhood]

is all my electrical fried now? the batteries smoked and controller caght fire, but would that fry my motor, solenoid, fr switch? Thankfully my batteries were already on their last leg so new batteries were in my near future anyway.

[shadowman]

Originally Posted by robnhood

is all my electrical fried now? the batteries smoked and controller caght fire, but would that fry my motor, solenoid, fr switch? Thankfully my batteries were already on their last leg so new batteries were in my near future anyway.

your motor should be ok as well as solenoid and F&R you might have a problem with cables and wires to them but componants should be ok.......glad you didn,t burn your house down..............you have to be very very careful i tell people all the time take your time do i cable or wire at a ime if you have to but this is a lesson you,ll never forget.........my 1st electric cart i ever worked on the very 1st one i caught on fire and i remember it with just as much detail as the saturday afternoon at 12.45 when it happened.......it was a 1992 E-Z go.................also not a bad idea to get a fire extingwisher and keep close by when working on one........................................

[robnhood]

thanks for the info on the other components. i hope i can find a contoller and new set of batteries and get it back going. definately will invest in a fire extenguisher and a shed to keep it in away from my house.

[simple man]

Did you get a big arc when you connected the cables, or did the fire start when the solenoid was engaged? I'm just curious, because if you got a big arc, I would have immediately disconnected whatever made the arc! Believe me, I've done similar stuff in my lifetime too!
Ever hooked up jumper cables to a vehicle backwards? It's kind of spectacular too!

[robnhood]

no i wish i could have taken it off immediately but it happened when the solenoid was engaged. all connections were tight and my water hose was disconnected it was a intense few minutes. but overall i was pretty lucky to stop it quick.

[robnhood]

in that situation when everything is hooked up, is it safe to cut a cable off rather then unscrewing it from a post?

[Brushpup]

Sorry to hear it robnhood. Glad nothing worse happened, but thumbsup on quick thinking.

Originally Posted by simple man

Did you get a big arc when you connected the cables, or did the fire start when the solenoid was engaged? I'm just curious, because if you got a big arc, I would have immediately disconnected whatever made the arc! Believe me, I've done similar stuff in my lifetime too!
Ever hooked up jumper cables to a vehicle backwards? It's kind of spectacular too!

One would think no one with any sense could do something so spectacularly stupid! But I did it just this year myself. Good thing they were EL CHEEPO cables. its the only thing that saved my rear on this one.