I had a visit this week, a rather brave chap called Steve drove his Berlingo all the way from Telford to where I live in Fife, about 350 miles. He stopped at campsites and friends houses to charge up.
He's had this van since 2002 and put almost 70,000 miles on it (and almost all of that on the original battery), despite the best efforts of the dealership to kill it off. Anyway, it was cutting out and generally not working properly, must have been a nightmare to drive, and could well have stopped altogether at any moment.
A quick look at the commutator confirmed the problem: there were two scorched segments opposite each other. When revved up, a worrying crackling arc appeared at the back of the brushes! No wonder the controller wasn't happy! I recognised this fault immediately because unfortunately I had another one go just like it a month previously, and got an expert diagnosis from Jim Husted of Hi Torque Electric in the States (very helpful guy!).
We swapped out the motor in record time, got it finished by about 9PM ready for Steve to begin the return journey. He set off early on Friday morning and arrived back home on Saturday night. Not bad going!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment