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Forward/reverse switch for old electric cart


scotts90ranger

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My family ended up with a Taylor Dunn utility cart from the 70's, it's 36V electric with a 9" rear end, 6' flat bed, resistor based speed control that is intact and a forward/reverse switch that is in pieces. Apparently it's ~$35 for new contacts for the switch that it came with but we only have about 3/4 of the switch... I'm crafty enough I could make it go but am missing the lever and such... Apparently these things are ~300 amp max and the forward/reverse switch shouldn't be handling the switching load making the life of the switch easier... It's ~$130 for a switch for an EZ Go golf cart, a WHOLE LOT more for a fancy speed control and everything to update it, or $30 for a double pole double throw safety knife switch I found HERE. It's rated at 100A which I imagine might be for each pole so 200A in this application

Thoughts? I'm tempted to give it a shot, it's cheap enough...
 


RonD

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What's the watt or AMP rating of the motor at 36volts?

One of the big problems for electric vehicles was dealing with the AMPs, higher amps tend to WELD together contacts if they arc or heat up, throttle controls and forward/reverse switches were the main issues that had to be dealt with

Even if motor is rated under 100amps at 36volts the 300amp contact surface may have been used to prevent heat up

You also have to reverse BOTH 36v and Ground to the motor in most systems
 

pjtoledo

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construct the "H" path with 4 starter relays? then you could use a low current switch to trigger the relays. I'm not sure how a starter relay would like to stay energized for an extended amount of time.
or look on Grainger for a real relay, but industrial stuff is very expensive.
 

2trux

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How about a solenoid pack for a winch. They are designed to reverse motor direction and carry a lot of amps.
 

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