Tinkering with Avengers Black Panther 6V quad power wheels (Part 3) - The testing

Part 1 and Part 2, if you haven’t read it.

Now that I have all the needed components, it’s time to first test the components and then piece them together. It’s much easier to understand how each component functions as well as to test them before integrating them with the power wheel.

I grabbed the DeWalt battery adapter and the low voltage protection box and started to wire them together. However, a problem arose! There were two red and black wires on the low voltage protection box. On the left side of the box, it said OUT, and on the right side, it said IN. I wasn’t sure to which side the battery adapter should be connected, so I looked at the original Amazon product picture.

The original product picture didn’t show any of the components connected, so I searched for another example on Amazon.

This picture clearly showed the battery being connected to the left side of the low voltage protection box, which was the side labeled OUT. Now, if I connect the remaining black and red wires to the motors, it should spin. So, I grabbed the existing power wheel motors and connected them. However, there was no sign of life. I double-checked the battery, and it showed that it was full. The weird thing was that the LED display on the low voltage protection box wasn’t lighting up.

Did I have a faulty product? Possibly, but I wanted to make sure. I wondered if I connected the battery adapter to the wrong side. Looking at the diagram, it seemed the battery adapter was connecting to the left side, labeled OUT, so it’s possible that the diagram is wrong and it’s just a rough example since it didn’t specify the IN and OUT side clearly. I was able to find a diagram underneath the product in the description section, which showed how the pieces should be put together. This diagram indicated the battery adapter being on the right side, labeled IN. However, it still wasn’t clear since the diagram didn’t specify the IN/OUT side.

I needed to be certain, so I started looking at other resources, and luckily, I found another example that was clearer. The diagram clearly showed the battery being wired to the side labeled IN.

I’m thankful that I double-checked, and the lesson learned is to always double-check diagrams, especially ones that are vague.

I connected the motors to the remaining wires, and I saw the motors spinning! Success! Now I know those two components work.

I only used the old motors for testing purposes, but I knew they would eventually burn out since they could only handle 6V.

Next was connecting the speed controller to the low voltage protection box. There was a slight problem: there was a label that appeared to be in Chinese characters (highlighted in the red box).

Looking underneath the component, I saw English labels (highlighted in the blue box) stating ‘motor’ and ‘power’. Due to my previous mistake, my confidence wasn’t high, so I turned to Google Translate, which allowed me to take a picture of the Chinese characters and translate them. The English label underneath was correct.

I quickly wired them together and then connected the old motor again. I was able to control the motor speed using the dial, which was awesome! I’m glad I was able to test the components this way because now I know that there weren’t any faulty components with what I purchased. It’s easier to debug if the motor doesn’t spin when I integrate the product, and I didn’t have to worry about ensuring the components fit inside the power wheel yet.

Time to integrate!