Zaapt…silent short causes oddities

May 22, 2008 by Rob.

I must have gotten bad eKarma from bragging on the RAVolt today over lunch because now there’s a short somewhere.  Alex noticed that the DC-DC converter was not charging while we were driving today and then I noticed that the volt meter did not drop to zero when the key was off.  Both are bad signs

I popped the main breaker and the volt meter dropped to zero so it’s clear that there is some high-resistance ground fault.  It has to be high resistance because there would be smoke otherwise!

I inspected all the batteries and there are no *obvious* faults from there.  The most likely spot would be on the positive cable for battery #5.  That leaves A LOT of wire to check because the link between #5 & #6 is the long run between the front and back packs.  Then again, cutting the breaker stopped the short.   Hmmmm…..

Maybe it’s time for an AustinEV open garage to get more eyeballs on it.

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