Precedent Aftermarket Key Wiring?

SparkDr

New to me 2008.5 Precedent 48v Electric cart. Changing ignition out to 3 position aftermarket key for "Off" / "On" / "On w/ Accessories". My thoughts are to have the "on" position feed power to the LED head / tail lights switch and the "accessory" position turn on the 48-12 voltage converter for my underbody LED's. In theory, when the key is off, everything would be 100% off and there would be no battery drain and no chance of leaving any lights on. No radio, so memory is not a concern. I'm also thinking if done correctly, I would be pulling power off the entire 48v instead of the #4 battery. I thought I had this all figured out, but the more I read, the more I doubt my original plan. I've searched the forums a bit looking for the answer and can't seem to pinpoint a common theory. My assumption is that the OEM key runs 48v through it, but the cart is across town in my buddy's garage so I can't pop a meter on it to confirm. I already have the cheesy 5amp converter that came with the underbody LED (not installed yet). LED Head / tail lights were already installed on the cart when I bought it. Where do I go from here?...a 2nd converter?, relays?, diodes? (whatever they're supposed to do?!). Would like to get everything in hand to do the job this weekend but not sure what to buy. I'm a old-school residential electrician...these little control things are all new to me. My fear is that I know just enough to do it all wrong...

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BGW

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Sergio

The way they refer to the battery position in these carts:

Battery #1 is pack positive (rear passenger side)
Battery #6 is pack negative (rear driver side).

You have a strange wire connected to the positive post of battery #6 that should not be there.

You should also not have the wire on battery #5 positive post as it creates the condition for an unbalanced pack.

You should use a 48v to 12v DC converter (20 amps or more) that is wired directly to the pack positive and Controller B-.

Make sure the converter has a "trigger" wire, which is a low current 48v wire that turns the converter +12v output ON.

The key switch on your Precedent is 48v.

The green wire at the key switch is the "hot" side (always ON).

The blue wire at the switch is the "cold" side (switched power).

The converter "trigger" wire is normally wired to the "cold" side of the key switch (blue wire).

Most folks just use separate 12v switches for each accessory, so your key switch would be:

(OFF) - (ON) - (ON w/accessories).

SparkDr

Thanks for the quick response and clear directions. Glad to see you could work with the picture I had. I snapped it when I first picked up the cart and wasn't sure if it would be helpful to share here or not. I'm looking at the Madjax 30a converter with the trigger wire and a Blue Sea 6 circuit fuse block with negative bus bar that should do the trick and offer future expansion options. Both are Prime eligible for shipping on Amazon, so for $8, I can have them delivered tomorrow for install this weekend. I'll get those incorrect wires traced out and out of play at the same time. Thanks again.

SparkDr

Got the dash bezel cut out and the controls mounted today. Still a lot of wiring and work left to do. More pics to follow.

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jjance

One other thing in case you haven't thought about it. You need to remove the original 16 to 12 volt reducer otherwise you will be reducing 12v to maybe 8v.

SparkDr

???Where is this??? I didn't come across 16v anywhere on the cart when metering out wires this weekend?

jjance

It's on the frame of the cart. Passenger side on one of the vertical members. But I reread the post and am now thinking that the extra wire Sergio pointed out maybe for the lights. The way it's wired would only give you 8volts at the lights. Check your voltage at the lights. If it's 8v it's only connected to one battery. If it's 12v its probably got a reducer in it.

SparkDr

It's good now that we're all on the same page. It came to me wired at 16v to the lights which is apparently ok as LED's are forgiving and can be run at that voltage. I pulled that wiring apart and am now running 48v across the entire pack to 2 different converters to balance draw at all times. One is the Madjax 30a converter feeding a 6 place fuse block triggered by position 2 on my switch (Ign). The other is a 5a converter just to run the LED head/tail lights at position 3 on my switch. I ran a constant positive from the hot side of the switch for the voltage meter as recommended since it has a common lead for turn on. This will give me a positive off for the cart and all accessories and give me the following key responses: "Off", "Ign" (run + acc), & "Lts" (run + acc + head/tail lights). I struggled for a while trying to figure out where to get a negative from for the fuse block accessories with the Madjax convertor (it doesn't have an output wire for this) before learning that the cart doesn't care and I could just run another pack negative wire to the negative buss stud on the fuse block. I hope that all makes sense...I did a lot of head-scratching before getting it all sorted and drawn out on paper.

Sergio

If You are still using the OBC to control the charge, ALL negatives must originate from Controller B-.

There should already be a black 10ga wire with a yellow bullet connector attached to Controller B- for that purpose.

The OBC measures the energy in and out of the batteries as the current passes through the OBC, so if You tap the negative directly on the battery post, the current used by the converter and accessories will not be detected.

SparkDr

Good to know. I guess I'll be making that change.