Hi All, I spent a full 7 days in Santa Cruz last week working side by side with Mike and Shari at Electro Automotive to finish repairs on my 85 VW Cabriolet conversion. The good news is the vehicle was operating nicely when I left Santa Cruz on Saturday with the VW on a flatbed uhaul trailer. The bad news is that once I arrived in Los Angeles, I backed the VW off of the flatbed trailer, made two small circles in the parking lot, and proceeded to park the car. I then left the VW in the parking lot while I returned the uhaul trailer. When I returned to the parking lot to make the final 2 mile drive home in EV glory, the VW would not move an inch.
m(_ _)m This is my first EV, and therefore I am hoping you experienced EVers can help me troubleshoot and isolate the problem..... Atleast the EV is home now thanks to AAA. Vehicle: 1985 VW Cabriolet 120 volt lead acid.... US battery US-125 ..... 20 6volt batteries Advanced DC 9" motor Auburn Scientific MPWC600 - water cooled controller Elcon DC/DC converter power brake booster Problem: As mentioned above, after backing vehicle off of flatbed trailer and parking for about 45 minutes, I returned to make final 2 mile drive home, but the EV would no longer move. I could here contactors close, and able to read a full voltage of 126v at the B- and B+ connections of the controller. I connected 12v Aux battery to A1 and S1 on motor to verify motor would still turn which it did. After some reading, I suspected the controller may have triggered itself into sleep mode due to pot box or abnormal voltage sensed by controller. I took ohm readings on 5k pot box which read 0 at one extreme, and 5.8k at the other extreme. I did not have time to work on car yesterday, so car sat for 24hrs with high voltage emergency disconnect switch behind driver activated and therefore cutting the traction pack from controller and motor. This morning I measured pre charge voltage at controller on B- and B+ on controller which showed 0 volts, so I closed the emergency disconnect, and turned key switch to on, and motor would turn while car was in neutral. I decided to drive the car and drove uphill (steep) 30 feet in my driveway. Since car was able to pull the hill, I coasted to bottom of hill and turned onto public street. As I accelerated more, the motor would cutout until I released accelerator pedal and then accelerate again, each time cutting out the motor after only slight acceleration. After maybe 5 or 6 attempts to gain speed, the controller and motor became completely un responsive again. Tried to zero out the precharge voltage and start over, but was unable to wake up controller. I am not certain if there is a reset procedure for the controller that I should be following...... after problem occurs and I activate manual disconnect switch, I still read 1.5 to 2 volts at B- /B+. The only difference I have found between Santa Cruz readings and Los Angeles readings is that when the traction pack is connected but the key switch is off I am now reading approximately 74.5volts, and in Santa Cruz when everything functioned normally, it would read approximately 81.5 volts. When key switch is turned on, it reads the full traction pack voltage of 126.4 volts both in LA and Santa Cruz. I notice as I type this that the difference in pre charge voltage is approximately 6 volts which may indicate a loose connection on 1 6v battery????? Please help.... and thanks in advance! Feel free to call :) Cheers, Scott 562 665 4541 feel free to call [email protected] -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/85-VW-Cabriolet-Newbie-please-help-m-m-tp4663524.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
