I Feel Your Pain!

[ken.simmermon]

Hey Gang, Well I've been very blessed with my ranger for a very long time (two and a half years), but she broke down two days ago, it won't take a charge, the batteries are fine its just in the charging circuit. I started working on it Thursday. I'm having a lot of anxiety about buying fuel and it's good thing I just fixed my bike (pedal powered).Now I know how it feels when your EV breaks down, I will keep you posted Ken S

[todd.dore]

Ken -

Please let me know what you find out when you fix it.  Is it the same problem that Fred had when he first bought that truck?  I remember it couldn't take a charge and there was a small circuit fix and everything was fine after that.

[ken.simmermon]

Hey Todd, It's not the same problem, that was a lose wire in the Avcon interface. This problem is going to be a little tougher! I will keep you all updated. Ken S

[ken.simmermon]

Just to keep you all up to date, on July 4th my son Adam and I repaired the Ranger and its charging, it turned out to be the charging relay K6 pn 0 332 019 103 Bosch. It looks like a standard 12v 30A car relay but it's rated for 50A. The Aux relay is a Siemens pn VF7-11F11 it's a 70A also 12v looks similar to the high speed fan(radiator) relay but higher amps. I was going to recommend changing the relays every 20K to 25K miles. But the charging relay is rated at 150K cycles. That's a lot of miles.
  I thought it had broke again the day of the July meeting but it turned out the battery pack had gotten hot from the weather and charging, it had gone into a safety mode, above 45 degrees C it won't charge but it was drivable. Woo that's a load off my mind. Just have to fix the AC now! The crank up windows seem fully operational so no big rush.

 

[joe.downing]

All of a sudden, the AVCON at Aurora won't turn on. I identified a voltage leak to the frame. I usually don't charge up at home with a GFI outlet, but plugged it in anyway and sure enough, it tripped it.I cleaned up the pack as much as possible. I have one battery whose top always ends up with more electrolyte than the others. I couldn't get that battery to read less than 2 volts to the frame. I removed that from the pack temporarily and went down to 19 batteries. There is still leak to the frame but it no longer trips my GFI  outlet.

My problem is the AVCON still won't turn on. Is the leak to the frame causing this possibly? Is the AVCON more sensitive than a standard GFI?I try to keep my pack clean but admit I'm sure there can be leaks at times. However, the AVCON has always worked.

Can the diode, resistor or capacitor have gone bad? I know the AVCON needs this bridge to the ground wire before it will turn on. Before rewiring this, is there something else I can look at?

Ken, is that what happened to you in the past....the diode, capacitor and/or resistor had to be rewired?

Thanks,
Joe

[joe.downing]

False alarm....I think.

I got back to the station last night and tried the Avcon and it worked. Once in a while they use that corner of the lot for special events on weekends. I can usually tell because there is a construction horse set up next to the fire hydrant with a hose thats connected to the hydrant. This is right next to the Avcon. So I think they might be doing something with the electric for these special events as well. I've had to call them a couple times and ask that they make sure that the Avcon is powered up if it doesn't work for me. Then, that night, it usually works for me.

I called them last week and the electrician was supposed to check it out. I assumed they did, I guess they forgot.

I was about to rewire the Avcon inlet.....glad I didn't do that.

Joe

[ken.simmermon]

Just saw your message, glad it's working I also think the boxes we are donating are very sensitive to ground faults. Joe If you are ever in a jam give me a call, that's the best way to reach me. I do need to make up some kind of indicator to show leakage to the chassis it wouldn't take much.  Ken