Quick question

Bobthefish19

My buddy just called me and told me he just bought a 36v CC DS and it has and extra battery on it to run accessories. My buddy further stated that the guy told him the accessories are on an extra battery Bc running lights off the batteries reducers HP. So is that a true statement??? I don’t believe it but I’m no mechanic. Thanks.....go Dolphins!!!!!

BGW

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Golf cart guy

Yes you could say that, but there are much better ways to run accessories

NoleFan4Ever

It really is voltage. But not to the extent you will see it through your speed per say unless it was long hard draw killing the voltage...

Mooncarter

yawood

If you have the lights running off the main pack via a voltage converter, it doesn't reduce HP as such (the motor is still producing the same HP so long as it is getting sufficient voltage from the batteries). It does, however, reduce the distance that you could travel because it would use some of the power from the battery pack that you would otherwise have to propel the cart further.

Unless you are really pushing the distance envelope each time you run the cart (or have very weak batteries), it is not a problem because you get to recharge the batteries before they run down anyway.

Some people like to have an extra 12V battery for accessories, especially if there are many accessories such as lights, radio, amplifiers, specialty lights (like under-body lights) etc. That's fine if you are prepared to carry the weight of an extra battery. The extra weight means you travel a lesser distance anyway before the pack batteries give out.

Otherwise, most people, who just have normal accessories like lights, prefer to fit a DC-DC converter which uses power from the whole pack and reduces it to 12V to feed the accessories. They don't have to carry the extra weight so the cart goes as far anyway.

Either solution is better than running accessories off a part of the pack (like only one of the pack batteries). That solution produces problems with balancing the pack voltages because one of the batteries is always getting more depleted than the others.

scrannel

Questions: (I have a 48v CC DS) since there are 48volt bulbs avail, could you run front lights using pack neg and positive?

Muddog

Yes, if you have 48v bulbs you can run them from battery pack.
It would be more efficient than a 12v convertor.

scrannel

What gauge wire should I run to and from the light switch.

yawood

That depends on the amperage. Now I don't know what lights you've got so let's just take an example.

Let's say that the headlights are 10W each side and the tail-lights are 5W each side that's a total of 30W going through the switch. Now Watts = Volts x Amps so 30 = 48xA or A = 30/48 = 0.625 (or 625 mA). So any wire that can handle an amp or more would be sufficient for the current going to the switch. The wires going to the individual lights can be less (roughly 0.25A to each headlight and 0.12A to each tail-light).

Standard auto cable will easily cover that sort of current, even 12AWG will carry three times as much as is needed for the switch, in this example, but that's good because it gives you a good safety margin.

scrannel

Thank you!