Van’s Wire Problem Solved and Fixed For the Solar Controller Project

Friday May 24, 2024 Guerneville CA.

Van solar controller hookup problem

I got the controller working yesterday, but there was a problem. That was the dash lights up like the car was ready to start without turning the key on.

Isolator

I removed the old isolator for the two batteries as this new controller didn’t need it.

But each time I hooked all the wires together that use to go to the isolator, the engine dash lights would come on with the key off.

I finally figured it out, by taking one wire off at a time, that it was the alternator wire that was causing this problem. It was working fine with the old isolator that I removed, but now it was messed up.

Wires

I bolted all the wires that were on the old isolator together with this bolt as the isolator was no longer needed and that’s when the problem started.

Fortunately, I’d watched a YouTube video a month or so ago on hooking up a one wire alternator, which I added a few years back to replace the old style unit. The thing I remembered about that video was they only hooked up the output wire and not any of the other ones that used to control the field. This newer alternator did have one of the field wires hooked up with the isolator for some reason which the video said I didn’t need, but maybe I did at the time when I hooked up the isolator a long time ago.

At any rate, when I removed that field wire from the alternator, it all worked as it should.

Problem solved.

Rounding up tools

With that problem taken care of, I got the small quad out and headed for the hills to find some trail making tools I’d stashed up there on one of the trails.

On the way, I stopped here to talk with Tom for a bit. He was working on his irrigation lines to his fruit trees.

Trail

This is the trail I needed to go out to find the tools I’d left out there. I wasn’t real sure just where I’d stashed the tools, but I was pretty sure they were out on this trail somewhere, maybe even where I thought they might be.

I rode the quad out the trail a short distance.

But I stopped here and walked the rest of the way, as if there was a tree that fell across the trail that I didn’t know about it would be real hard to get the quad turned around as most of the trail, the quad barely fit on .

Trail tools

The tools were right where I thought they might be by this big fir tree. I noticed some little holes just behind the tools.

Ant Lions

These are ant lion holes. There’s an ant lion at the bottom of each one waiting for an unsuspecting insect to slide down into them so they can eat them.

Pipeline work

I took the tools home and got on the dirt bike and rode on up to do some work on the pipeline trail. I’d left some tools up at this one so I didn’t need to bring any tools up.

I worked on digging that trail/ditch for the pipeline which I hope to install soon, for a couple of hours, which was enough to tire me out.

Nice day.