Re: Summary: Lester charger problems - help needed!

[Jim Coate <jcoate@massed.net>]

More info on Lester is below, but if not turning off is the ONLY
symptom, you might be in one of the other catagories... problems with
the battery pack, old age, connections, etc.  There is also the
intriguing possibility in my case that being in a shop near welding
equipment aided in the demise of the logic board (although no welding
was being done on my particular vehicle...)

Lester turns out to have a small web site at  
http://www.lesterelectrical.com which includes several pages of
diagnostic info (PDF format).  They are in Lincoln, Nebraska, Phone:
(402)-477-8988, Fax: (402) 474-1769.

They close at 4PM... The only time I called before 4 all the people who
could help me were busy so we will see about it next week...

Brendan Kirby wrote:
> 
> Dear Jim,
> 
> Please continue to post concerning your progress with Lester (phone numbers
> and contact names would be nice too). Apparently my Lester has decided to
> quit turning off, so there is a board problem. I will be taking it apart
> this weekend & likely will end up running it as a manual while the board is
> fixed.
> 
> Thanks for the info.
> 
> Brendan Kirby
> 
> At 10:03 PM 7/29/99 -0400, Jim Coate wrote:
> >Thanks for the great responses... with the control board removed, it is
> >now going again as a manual charger.  The consensus was that Lester is
> >very responsive about fixing the control boards (at least for the
> >ferroresonat type that I have), so I will give that a try (and on a
> >closer look the board is coated in sealant making DYI repair very
> >difficult even if I knew what the circuit was...)
> >
> >>From Brian's great info on pinouts, a slight variation jumping pins 6
> >and 10 together makes the "summer/winter" switch the "on/off" switch
> >(which with an alarm clock makes for the "human servo" method...)
> >
> >To answer a few questions people raised:
> >It had further degraded such that for the first part of the charge, all
> >was fine, then in the middle it would repeatedly turn on and off, then
> >at the end wouldn't turn off. The batteries are cheap (Sam's club) but
> >only a few months old and well watered. The connectors are all good. The
> >summer/winter switch was in 'summer'.  The relay opened and closed fine,
> >just way to often.
> >
> >
> >Right about now I'm glad I'm still using floodeds as less-than-ideal
> >charge cycles are quite likely in the next couple of weeks.
> >
> >
> >Brian wrote:
> >> The control boards seem to get zapped fairly easily.  Tony
> >> (tonyascrizzi@juno.com) has had very good success getting the
> >> control boards repaired by Lester very cheaply.
> >>
> >> While the control board is out is fairly easy to put a 12-hour
> >> timer from a hardware store in place of it.  On my 120V Lester
> >> thats pin 1&6, battery negative and relay coil.  The other side of
> >> the relay coil should already be hooked to battery positive.
> >
> >
> >_________
> >Jim Coate, jcoate@massed.net
> >1992 S-10, http://www.channel1.com/users/jcoate/ev
> >
> 
> Brendan Kirby, P.E.
> 
> Oak Ridge National Laboratory
> 423-576-1768
> 423-574-5227 Fax
> 
> PO Box 2008
> MS 6070
> Oak Ridge, TN  37831

-- 

_________
Jim Coate, jcoate@massed.net
1992 S-10, http://www.channel1.com/users/jcoate/ev