Using timer on charger

Aussiebob

In order save money on electricity our golf club wants us to put electric timers on our chargers so they only charge during our off peak period. Does anyone know if this will have any adverse affect on either the charger or batteries.
Thanks

BGW

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theboss20

Won't work on a factory setup for a Club Car because of the OBC.

teecro

If using the STOCK OE Power Drive charger I think it would work the first time the chargers were energized after being plugged into the carts. But if the power is turned off to the chargers after they have been energized they will not come back on a 2nd time. If using "smartchargers" like the DPI it will work...

Hecky50

Or something like this...http://www.granitedigital.com/saveab...mbup::thumbup:

Sergio

As long as the Off Peak period is 12 hours or more it should work and it makes a lot of sense to defer the charging to OFF peak time.

While unplugging and re-plugging the AC cord on the charger does not trigger a new charging cycle, having no AC when the OBC tries to control a charging cycle is different.

The OBC will keep trying to complete the charging cycle for up to 7 days, the only part that is vague in all literature I have seen is the time between re-tries.

On the Precedent, the manual describes the battery light behavior as follows:

I would be more concerned with how well synchronized the timers are as it could cause a peak power demand the club has never experienced before as it would not seem likely that all carts get plugged to their chargers at the same time now.

Sergio

I did the following test yesterday:

At 8:00AM when I left for work, I disconnected the charger AC cord from the wall and plugged the DC cord to the cart.

At 8:00PM I plugged the charger AC cord to the wall and the charging started immediately.

It would appear the OBC keeps the relay engaged the entire time waiting for AC power to be available.

_ogre

won't the obc eventually time out in 16 hours?
say you play a round at 7 am, plug the charger in at 9 am and off-peak starts at 9pm
would you only get a 4 hour charge?

Sergio

Not at all, the charging cycle timer does not start until the OBC sees the charger working.

The timeout for waiting on AC is 7 days.