The eMR2 hasn’t rolled too many miles since the pack capacity dropped off but I still manage to have some fun running around the neighborhood. After a trip to the dog park, I was jockeying the car around in the parking space outside of the garage when the sickly-sweet odor of roasting electronics filled the air. The car would still move forwards and backwards and the 12V DC-DC converter was still functioning but I went ahead and rolled it into the garage.
Opening up the inverter revealed a couple of capacitors that were swelled and ruptured, leaving their burnt entrails across the board.
I don’t know what these capacitors do but I’m hoping that replacing them is all that’s needed to get back on the road. I have read it’s reasonable to expect capacitors to dry out and fail after some time even if they haven’t been used. I suspect these Siemens inverters are about 20 years old now so it may be that they just came to the end of their functional lives.
Hopefully its not any bigger problem than that. I’m in the process of removing the board and taking a closer look.
