Melex 252 Electrical Concern

[loomisfarmer]

Hello everyone, As I'm new to this community, this is my first post.
We just purchased a Melex 252 last night. When we got home and started to charge the cart, we noticed the coil getting RED hot. What we discovered was that the gear handle was bumped to forward position, I guess allowing power to flow to the coil. I would think that when the cart is off, there would be no power flowing, but that does not appear to be the case. There is no key, so someone installed a toggle switch for on & off. We had the toggle set to off so I would think that should prevent anything to flow past the batteries, but that was not the case.
I need to come up with a different solution as this could create a fire if my kids set the charger and leave the cart in either forward or reverse. Can anyone tell me if this is how the cart was designed or did the person installing the toggle switch make an installation mistake??
Thank you for your support with this...

[roady89]

Welcome to BGW


If that coil is getting hot then there is power going to the solenoid. Yes, something is not wired correctly. Even if the power is ON and you are not moving the coil should not get hot. I would find a diagram and make sure its wired right, the toggle is fine as long as its wired properly. If your main concern is your kids then I would convert the system over to a solid state speed control. Its a far better system than the resistor type.

[loomisfarmer]

thank you for the feedback roady89. I will investigate this weekend as I thought there might be a wiring issue. It soundes like the toggle switch is allowing power all the time, maybe?? As to the solid state control:
1. Do you have a rough est of cost? (I'm not looking to put a lot of money in this thing). Would you find is cheaper to purchase a kit, or piece meal the parts list?
2. How difficult is the installation?
3. Would you know of any detailed information on this process?
Thanks again for your support.

[roady89]

If you keep your eye out in our for sale section and ebay you can find a good used series controller for cheap. ($150 ish maybe or even less) A curtis PB-6 throttle potentiometer will be needed to control speed. (shop around...can be had for around $60)

You could make the resistor type controls work good but your going to have to make SURE everything is working properly.....the same thing can be said for an electronic control. The series type electronic control is a simple system....most people understand it better than the old resistor systems.

The resistor system has cons. The same amount of power is being used at half throttle as full speed. The extra power is burned of as heat in the resistor coils. (you can start a grass fire or your kids could burn their hands. Mine did. LOL!) With an electronic controller thats not the case, you will also gain some run time.

As far as a conversion, IMO the hardest part will be mounting the throttle pot and hooking up any linkage you may need. If you have minor fabricating skills you can do this easily....just use your imagination. The next hardest will be mounting the controller. There are a few companies that sell a conversion kit for an ezgo. Your melex should be a direct copy of an ezgo of the same era. They were ezgo clones back then. Ezgo parts will interchange but I am not sure about the conversion parts because I have converted a melex. IMO you can peice it together cheaper unless you don't have the skills to do it yourself.

[rusty]

Welcome to the forum loomisfarmer...................