98 DS - 1st upgrade..Controller or Motor??

[mrgolf]

The regen 2 drivers side solenoid has a coil. If the solenoid is bad the current has no choice but go through coil to power the cart. If that's the case you will loose speed and torque. It is not uncommon for this to happen on a regen 2 cart. It should be one of the first things checked if you have a speed or torque problem on a regen 2.

[NHgrizzly]

It was 100% the coil. Thanks MrGolf!
Bypassed it and it had plenty of torque and was able to climb a hill in my yard, that it could not before.
Now, should I leave it bypassed or replace, allowing it to "moderate" the speed when the teenager is going down hills !?

If I do replace, will it impact the hill climb? Or will it basically enable Regen and braking? ( I guess I can replace and bypass when I want)


Now that I don't have to replace the motor or controller, I can get some new rubber. I don't think I am going to lift it, I got a Jeep for that!

[mrgolf]

You can replace it and hook the speed sensor back up to get regen braking back.

First we need to be sure the solenoid is bad or the activation curcit may not be working.

Make yourself a couple jumper wires. Hook one to battery pack positive and the other to battery pack negative. Touch them to the small post on the solenoid. If it closes the solenoid is likely good. If so we will have to find out which activation wire is failing.

Glad you are up and running for now anyway.

BTW you can leave things as they are to do these test.

[fldoghunter]

I think I might have the same problem. Mine is also a 98 regen 2. I have the body off my cart for painting. I had to move the cart to the shop @ work (about a quarter mile down the road. While I had the body off, I upgraded my cables to 4 ga and did a few other piddley things. Brought it back home today (having to drive it slow, standing up) getting ready to start putting it back together. It felt like it had no power, but I was creeping along. I slowly pushed the go pedal all the way down and it sure seemed slow, even standing. Half way home I smelled something burning. A wire loom had fallen on the coil and was burning (no wires burnt though). Tucked it away and zip tied it when I got home. I was thinking I was just imagining things untill I read this.

Could it be something I unhooked removing the body, that I will hook back up putting the body back on (like maybe one of the activation wires). Or does the hot coil mean something is definitely wrong? Anything wrong with leaving the regen brake by-passed? It's flat with very few hills here and it seems I keep hearing of problems with this system. If it is ok to leave it by-passed, which pigtail gets unplugged on the motor (mine had an upgraded motor when I bought it. A D&D, 11 hp motor).

I know I should put it back together and see if that fixes it, but everything is rough to get to with the body on. It would be easy to work on now.

[mrgolf]

You can do the test in the above post to check solenoid.

If you want to do the by pass just remove the solenoid and run the cable from controller direct to motor. That will save you a connection. The pig tail is on the end of the motor. With that motor you will see an increase in speed also.

[fldoghunter]

There is already a loose plug @ the back of the motor, with no plug on the motor to match. Could it be that this motor doesn't have that plug? It was doing almost 20mph.

[mrgolf]

Someone likely removed the speed sensor. You can do that anytime without by passing the solenoid.

[fldoghunter]

If it's been unplugged, do I even have regen braking now? If not I'll just swap the cable and put the solenoid on the shelf as a spare. If it's any good that is. The only thing that isn't hooked up is the wires that go to the charging port. Anything there that operates the regen?

[mrgolf]

You are right , if it's not hooked up you don't have regen. You can do what you said.

[fldoghunter]

Thanks