My Daughters 750 Schwinn electric Scooter! Electircal problem?
HI: If anyone has had this problem, please get back with us. Daughter needs this scooter as soon as possible. We have a 750 Schwinn electirc scooter, and now cannot get to run. Battery charger showing full charge, but problem arrises when we turn it on. When i turn switch to run possition, the controoler is usually green, then changes to orange, then to red and then shuts off. I possible think may be a simple problem, and dont want to take to a nearest, ( 50 miles) shop. If anyone has any possible ideas on this, and can walk me through this, i would love to fix myself. Starting to think it possibble could be a fuse. it will run for a few sec when light is first turned on. thanks, JIM
call or text me at 412-780-5998 ( Pittsburgh, Pa.)
If things work for a few seconds, it is unlikely to be a fuse.
Maybe the motor has shorted out, draws too much current from the controller, and the controller is overloaded and quits?
The three colored lights on the throttle indicate relative voltage from the pack. How quickly does it go from green to orange? Have you tried twisting the throttle when you have the green light? Does the motor start to turn?
You may have dead or uncharged batteries. Just because the charger has a LED lit, doesn't guarantee a fully charged battery pack. If you can measure each battery with a voltmeter it could be helpful. I'd also check EVERY electrical connection you possibly can.
If you have a regular 12V automotive-type charger that puts out no more than about 4 Amps, you could charge each battery separately to see if it makes a difference. Original batteries don't last long in Currie products. I killed a 36V pack in my Stealth in just a few months and was very careful about recharging after every time I ran it. The stock series-charger just hastens the process.
If the batteries prove to be okay, you may have a problem with the throttle or controller, or the motor.
But, I strongly suspect it is time for new batteries.
How do you like the gearbox drive? Did you ever get the sprockets aligned on your 500?
Yes, the only way to know for sure is to process of elimination. It could be battery, charger, controller or motor. My bet is on a bad battery or batteries. I would start by putting the scooter on a block and twisting the throttle. If the motor runs and sounds normal under this no load condition it is probably fine and it is time to check the batteries and charger as described above. Each battery tested separately and fully charged should read something over 12 volts on a voltmeter. 12v or under means a dead battery. If the motor is good and the batteries and charger are good then suspect the controller.
One easy thing to check if you have not done it, check the 40amp fuse.
"I did take it apart, and disconnected a few electrical things, and got her 750 scooter running good again."
What exactly did you disconnect? And then you re-connected them, right?
If the fuse was blown, everything would be dead. You'd have no lights at all. But there may be a loose connection (even between the fuse and the fuse holder - check it) that sometimes makes good and sometimes not. Have you checked ALL connections from the battery terminals (they may be soldered, so make sure they are not loose) all the way thru to the motor? Doesn't seem that the controller would give you intermittent results unless it had a loose connection internally. I suppose it could also be a bad switch? Have you tried flipping it on and off when you are having the problem?
Did you ever check the voltage of your batteries (individually) before AND after charge? Do you know if your charger is working properly every time? I think I would do a few more simple tests before I bought another controller.
Harlow
You say
it will seem to run for a while. then will eventually stop
Do you have a volt meter? If you measure the voltage a) when it comes off the charger, b) when it poops out.. that will tell you a lot.
By "eventually stop" does the power poop out gradually? Quickly? Or does it simply shut off? Does it turn back on after it shuts off?
When the light is green, how far can you ride?
If you're going to play with electric vehicles, you really need to get a Digital MultiMeter. It doesn't need to have the accuracy of a Fluke, anything is better than guessing. You can get a good-enough one at Harbor Freight for $8 or less.
It would be helpful if you could take some real measurements during those conditions of red-light, green-light. So far, we don't have enough information to help you make a decent diagnosis.
Since you have a new controller, why not just install it and see if it fixes your problem? If it doesn't, you'll have a spare controller, but still have an existing problem with the batteries, throttle, or wiring.
It will have come with a pair of test leads, red and black. Plug those into the holes on the multimeter.
At the end of the test leads are some metal prods.
To measure voltage first twist the dial on the front of the meter to the voltage range. It's likely there are a few voltage ranges it will measure such as 0-10v, 0-20v, 0-200v, ... set the meter to cover the range you're likely to see. This is a 24v battery pack so it's likely you'll see voltage up to 30v and therefore choose the voltage range that includes 30v. Then it's simply a matter of touching the red and black leads to places in the battery pack.
Each battery has a + and - connector, so touch one lead to the + and the other lead to the -.
In the pack the two batteries will be wired in series.. touch one lead to the positive-most end of the battery pack, touch the other lead to the negative-most end of the battery pack.
On the controller you'll see a pair of wires going to the battery pack .. another pair of wires going to the motor .. if you can, touch one lead to each of the motor wires and then twist the throttle.
Another thing a meter can do is measure whether a wire is broken or the resistance in a wire. You do that by twisting the dial to the ohm settings. The leads work differently when in ohm-testing mode. You touch one lead to one end of a wire, touch the other to the other end, then it tells you the amount of resistance between those leads. If it's a wire and the wire is not broken then it will read 0 ohms. You can test a switch using the ohm mode, touch the leads to different positions on the switch then flip the switch and watch how it changes.
You can test skin resistance by touching the leads to your skin. IIRC lie detectors use this as a basic principle.
Good luck exploring.
66 volts is obviously not correct. Double-check your connections. The leads that plug into your DMM should be in the bottom two ports. The top (red) one is for testing Amps (DC) and is good only to 10A and must be connected in series. You want to put the red lead into the DMM in the middle port (red) and the black should be in the bottom port. Set the rotating dial to 200 DCV and try it again. You should see something around 24-28 volts if you are measuring both batteries in series. You can also touch the DMM leads to the terminals on just one battery. You will need to rotate the dial to the 20 DCV setting to measure one battery.
It's never a good idea to eliminate the fuse. Try putting in a new fuse, and if you have the same problem, it's likely a bad connection within the existing fuse holder. You can get a replacement fuse holder at many online scooter parts stores.
"I was under the impression, that if the fuse would be bad, the scooter would not of run at all."
That's true if the fuse was blown (melted in half from excessive amperage/heat), which should be easily visible.
Glad that you now seem to have a working scooter and the beginning of your "spares" inventory.
Thanks for sharing your results. Good lesson for us all about blade fuses!
I just bought a brand new sealed in the box scooter that sat in a guys garage for a few years schwinn s500 scooter but found the batteries were stone cold dead and will not take a charge. So I used my old batteries from my old 500s scooter.
As soon as I get the scooter rolling down the road it just cuts out and as soon as I turn it of and on again it takes off fast and than dies again.
The charger says the batteries are charged? The reason I got this scooter is my last one was doing the same thing.
I also had a razor 300 scooter that did the same thing. I changed out the controller,fuse,brake switch and even the motor. Finally I tossed the thing in the trash. Now I am on my second Schwinn with the same problem.
Any Ideas? I am going to buy new batteries tomorrow.
Chargers will sometime show green if the battery will not accept a charge. With Lion batteries, we refer to it as sleep mode. Let it sit on the charger (showing green) for a few hours and see if they wake up. Even though yours is SLA and there is no battery management system, I have had occasional luck doing the same with your kind of pack. Simple voltage tests will NOT indicate how your batteries will perform in use, make sure the battery shop tests each 12v battery at 3 times the rating for the deep cycle batteries used on your scooter. Have your local shop test em and then buy em from them if needed. Sometimes you have one or two perfectly good units in your string-especially if it is a fairly new pack. By the time you pay for shipping you will probably find that the local store is actually cheaper and you helped keep your neighbor in business. If you want to do it yourself, buy a cheap $60 carbon pile load tester from Harbor Freight or similar and test your starting type batteries as well. If you're near Detroit, come in to my shop and we'll test 'em for free. Hope this helps,
New batteries solved the problem. Thanks for the help!
Seems like when i turni t on, it starts green, then orange, then red, then no light at all. Anyone else had this problem?
Jim 412-780-5998
lippyscollectables@juno.com