ERA Forum Technical Help (Editor’s Note: If you haven’t been on the Electrical Rebuilders Association’s new Web site—you’re missing out on the best information sharing in the industry. New members and the old faithful are making the Technical Help Forum the place to go with rebuilding questions, and all sorts of technical info. Following is a sample of what’s going on.) POST: I have a warn winch. Rebuilt the motor and it is working in both direc- tions. Replaced all four solenoids and repaired some wiring. I can get it to go in the forward direction no problem. But in the reverse direction all it does is buzz (the noise is coming from the solenoids). I have triple-checked my wiring to and from the solenoids and everything is wired right. I am thinking I have a bad controller but wanted a second opnion. REPLY: Sounds like you are right. If possible, reverse the two control wires coming from the controller to your relays and see if the opposite happens. You might also try manually jumping the control wires at the relays (bypass- ing handheld controller). REPLY: You might connect current meter to see how much it draws in the buzz condition. Could be excessive and the solenoid is losing its voltage. When it closes it de-energizes, then closes again giving you the buzz. POST: Thanks guys, I switched the wires like you said, it is the controller. POST: I finally found a used growler cheap. Sometime, somewhere, someone must have opened it up and resoldered the connections. This may be why it doesn’t seem to work exactly right. Does anyone have a basic wiring dia- gram for Silver Beauty (yes, I did say ‘old’) growlers? Model number is 450. REPLY: I have no wiring diagram. I have the same model. I would start with the basics. What part is not working; the growler, or the “bar to bar” test prods? Test continuity of AC cord for opens, test power switch and high/low test prod switch. The growler part should work if you connect AC directly to its “trans- former.” If someone left the unit “on” without an armature in the “cradle,” they may have burned it up. You also have an indicator light and a fuse, I believe. Fuse good? POST: The unit turns on. The light lights and the meter moves. If I touch the red probes to a bad armature, the light goes on or off depending on where I touch them. The meter moves when I use the black probes. However, I thought the meter should peg out when I touch the black prods together; it doesn’t twitch. This place hasn’t had a growler with a meter in decades, and no one is willing to say whether it’s working correctly or not. For all I know, it’s working fine and I’m the problem. REPLY: Here is how I use the prods on my Silver Beauty Model 450: 1) Cable tie the two prods together (side by side). 2) Clean (sand) commutator. 3) Use “Low” position for most starter armatures. 4) Mark one bar with a marker (starting point). Find the “sweet spot” on commutator (for a reading), which is usually below the center of the armature commutator at eye level. Make sure prods touch two bars. To do this you have to come in at an angle. Rotate armature towards you to the next bar and repeat. Keep prods in same position. In other words, move armature, not prods. Do a complete rotation and look for consistent “bar to bar” readings, which will normally be on the lower end of the meter. Takes a little practice, but once learned, can be done quickly. Hope this helps. REPLY: RE: ‘However, I thought the meter should peg out when I touch the black prods together; it doesn’t twitch.’ Probably have a AC meter. When touch- ing prods together “no AC is found.” Also the ones with DC cost consider- ably more “if they make them anymore” but are more dependable. I still use the hacksaw method, takes about 30 sec- onds to go around a com once you have done a few dozen. Then counting the sparks between each bar, that takes a few hundred years of experience. POST: OK, I tried Denny’s method on some new armatures and two from the scrap bin that had “short” written on them. The meter barely twitched for one of the new ones and stayed close to zero for the other one. It went all over the place for one of the shorted armatures and registered high for the other one. Does this sound correct? I’m planning to test all the stored armatures here (hundreds) and Id like to do it right. REPLY: To test for shorts, you have to use the “hacksaw” over the top of the armature. What I previously described was for checking for “opens” or weak bar to bar connections. REPLY: Growler testing—good topic for Tuesday night chat. In the meantime the AC current measured will vary from armature to armature, depends on wire size and number of turns. What we are looking for is the variations that occur as we go around the com. The hacksaw method (screw- driver if you like) checks for a “closed loop,” the growler acts like a trans- former and if the wires are shorted to each other we have a closed loop and current can flow in this loop creating a magnetic field