Owen Aaland

Owen, you were absolutely right about the starter discussion on Sunday. It was, indeed, the hold-in winding in the solenoid. You taught me something I didn't know--that the starter solenoid works in two stages, pull-in and hold-in. I suppose a guy of almost 80 can still learn something. I am grateful for your helpful knowledge!

Owen always does a good job of explaining "how stuff works". I was about to get into that discussion but saw his explanation. That heavy draw of the pull in winding, although it is of short duration, puts a lot of strain on the starter switch, safety switch, and wiring all down the line. That is why a lot of applications use a relay to carry the heavy load and starter switch to trigger relay. I did have one that was "machine gunning" many years ago. After going through the starter customer had brought in, it still did same thing. A trip out to the farm showed that safety switch was the problem. That surprised me but new switch cured it. That is not the end of the story though. Farmer had some cobbled up inner tubes on top of battery and I did not get them all back in the correct place. He comes into his shed the next day and tractor is starting on fire in wiring. He quickly unhooked battery but it had some lot of wiring damage. End of story is, that he got a whole new wiring job from us at our insurance co. expense. We were just glad he caught it before it burned down his whole shed and equipment. Some one was looking out for me I guess.