2002 DOA in San Diego after pothole hit

Uh oh.
I know they pack smoke in these things, but I didn’t know about rocks.

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oops, was reading on a phone and missed that minor detail,

@Erniea15 let me borrow an old T2 he had with a broken 23 pin connector housing and connected it up. With key OFF, P-brake on the buzzer kept buzzing like the previous controller… BUT…
I cycled the main battery cutoff switch because … Ctl-Alt-Del … and on the 2nd try the buzzer stopped buzzing until I turned the key on and released the P-brake after which the Contactor clunked.
The large baby rattle… I mean Controller was the problem.

Now the problem is, how much duct tape will it take to hold the 23 pin connector on and how much does @Erniea15 want for his controller and/or box of parts.

@AssyRequired , @JarJarJava and @Erniea15 you guys are awesome!

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That need to reset was kinda weird… I wonder what was sticking?
(Actually, I think that might be a funny accessory to rob some keys off a keyboard and stick the Ctl-Alt-Del on the dash somewhere.)

Nice! Did you need the jumper wire over to P21?
Now all you need to do is swap the 8 pin to the 12 pin display port and maybe adjust the tune in that T2 to your car.

Are you going to (eventually) open the T1? I’m kinda curious what the prize is in the box. It makes sense if it has been rattling around in there for a while and jumped up in the dip and glanced off crossed a couple of sensitive solder pads.

Don’t do too much thrashing on it yet. If we need to get in and look at your numbers to transfer over to your new T2 the logic board may still be active.

I wonder if I just didn’t wait long enough for the capacitors to precharge or something. When the buzzer stopped it did kind of stop slowly instead of just instantly turn off.

no jumpers, just stock(my-stock) everything.

hmm, is the T2 tune much different from the T1 or I wonder what tune this T2 has besides stock? I have the Tune kit from Dave for the T1 but never connected it up(I don’t run Windows and just never got around to seeing how it plays in WINE ).

My wife didn’t give me 2 T-shirts which say “I Void Warranties” for nothing. :slight_smile: YES, I’ll be cracking that thing open. I expect to find a broken transistor from the low voltage regulation circuit rattling around.

Good idea.

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Lord knows what config is on there. I think I pushed my r4f settings they used when I bought a blue motor to that controller. I probably only ran it once or twice. It’s been sitting in a bin for 3 years now, not doing anyone any good so I’m glad it was able to come to the rescue.

And I got to meet another forum member face to face which is always fun.

@DelThink has my t2 computer interface cable. You can use that when he’s done

R4F didn’t change too many settings. Believe it was remove the speed limit and then recalibrate the speedo for my tires. I ended up putting on 14" rims… don’t remember the exact tires size. Check the speedo to your gps once you get the gauge connected.


Piece of a FET might have been rattling. I did hear something hit the floor as I was opening it up but could not locate it.

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I see two FETs in there with craters. Perhaps it was the other piece?
Also a lot of black in there. Any other damage?

Is this what “sudden inrush” looks like when you don’t precharge?

When I sent mine in, all they did was raise the max speed setting (“Maximum Overspeed”) from 25 to 35 and lower the Minimum Field Current setting from 85 to 75.

I’ve not looked closely at it yet. So little that I didn’t see the 2nd FET on the far right which was also blown. Yes, that was probably what fell out the hole in the end cap as I worked on the outer case.

The failure was a dead car(no display, no contactor, nothing with key cycling). So I would think this failure occurred when the whole car was bounced by the impact. Is it common for the display circuit to also go dead when one or more FETs give out?

My wife didn’t give me 2 T-shirts which say “I Void Warranties” for nothing. :slight_smile:

:laughing: :laughing:


See- this is why the forensic side of me likes taking apart problem components.


Disclaimer - I am by no means an expert and I haven’t stayed at a Holiday Inn lately so take it for what it’s worth. This is more for discussion purposes and it may lead to discovery of the real fault by people smarter than me.


I think those FETs are on the hv/hc output side of the controller. I suppose it could have spiked back to the logic board and popped something related to the 5v/12v down converter in the controller. Usually the FETs just pop with less drama, the car stops and the controller faults with a code to the PID.

Possibly this indicates a momentary (dip induced) fault of something downstream? Look for an arc/burn spot around inside the motor? Loose brush wire? ← (spitballing here).

You might have something there because I just took it down the street and the motor is surging at slow speed… I was thinking there might be a program difference between T2 and T1 but something braking in the motor sounds completely plausible.

On the stock 5HP motor and stock T1 controller, what are the odd a T2 with unknown programming would cause a shuddering/surging problem?

Also, I’m searching for the process for getting to the brushes since they are in the back of the 5HP motor and these don’t have the removable grill/band like the blue 7hp motors.

shuddering/surging problem

Feel free to send me a quick vid of this.

getting to the brushes

I can talk you through this, There are tricks getting it back together.

I don’t think a video can show this as it’s a pulsing was I start accelerating and it doesn’t get going very fast. I didn’t want to strain anything(controller) so I was easy on the throttle. It was a feeling of stuttering in a consistent on/off/on/off manner.

I’ve seen others with broken cases so I don’t want to do that but since I saw in a previous post that the controller can cause shuttering I’d like to see if that has anything to do with it before opening up the motor.

It sounds like you are bouncing off the limiter?

Is that something that happens at starting and speeds of maybe 5 MPH?

I was chasing something similar a while ago. I went down a couple of rabbit holes but believe this setting helped

No idea what it’s set to on your controller.

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