Gas Turf carryall electrical problems?

[Fairtax4me]

What kind of battery is in this cart?
We know it had a bad ground already for the starter, did you replace the main ground cable from the battery to the frame as well?

[Jaypay131]

Alright so let's see if I can answer all of the questions.

1. The battery installed is a interstate battery that we had laying around.

2. Yes, I redid the main ground from the frame to the battery.

3. Resistance between the two small terminals is 0.98

4. yes, we have 12v on the blue wire and yes, we have ground to the orange wire.

5. As far as the starter/generator being bad I currently have three of them laying in the shop. One is bad for sure that came new in the box bad. One is the original starter/generator that came on the cart, but it is on its last leg. (The cart won't run with that one on either. Same problem) And the third is a new one that I ran a bench test, and it seems fine.

[CP241]

What setting did you have your meter set to when checking resistance between the two small terminals? Is that 0.98 ohms? Or 0.98 kilo-ohms?

[CP241]

I just checked the solenoid coil on my DS before I head to work and it’s 16 ohms.

Try this as well. Put a light bulb (if you have an old school test light that’s not LED that will work as well) between the blue and orange wires. Let’s create a load on that circuit. When you press the pedal it should light up. Measure voltage again with a bulb in place of the solenoid.

Bad connections can sometimes be hidden in a circuit when there’s no load applied. Start drawing some current through the circuit and a lot can change quickly. Remember it only takes one strand of wire to make a circuit complete. But run current through that strand and it quickly heats up and drops the voltage. Low voltage could damage the solenoid as well (chattering)

[Jaypay131]

Originally Posted by CP241

What setting did you have your meter set to when checking resistance between the two small terminals? Is that 0.98 ohms? Or 0.98 kilo-ohms?

That would be 0.98 ohms.

[CP241]

Originally Posted by Jaypay131

That would be 0.98 ohms.

Yeah that’s no bueno. That’s basically a dead short.

Do you still have the other solenoids that it smoked? I’d like to know if they failed the same way.

I think we have an issue on the activation circuit. Now we just need to know if it’s on the power feed side or the ground side of it. Check voltage on the blue/orange with a load in line as I described. You can use a fog light bulb, test light… pretty much anything that will pull an amp or two so we can get not only voltage, but some current flowing through that circuit as well.

Gut tells me once you get a load in the circuit, you’ll see that 12v drop. I bet you find that there’s high resistance through one of the microswitches but it could be a chaffed wire or bad connection somewhere too.

[Jaypay131]

So I was able to check on of the first solenoids that popped on me and it tested out the exact same way.

I haven't had a chance to do anything else with the cart today due to some other projects that have been pushed up. Hopefully I will have a chance to do it tomorrow. I really appreciate it. Thanks again for everything.