OBC in 2014 Excel Club Car?

txpres

Just got home with my new 2014 Excel Club Car. Came with 3" lift and fancy wheels. Runs 23mph on flat road. (Speed Code 4). Also has good acceleration. Not as fast as my old 1996 Series cart with GE D380 speed motor, but not bad.
Two things that I noticed right away.
One, the charger is very different. No big transformer. Probably a switching power supply. The dealer said that in the new Club Cars, the charger controls the charging, not the OBC in the Cart.
Second, I was measuring the cables to see about ordering 4ga or 2ga cables. There does not seem to be an OBC. There is a solenoid, a controller, and the motor that are attached to the main large cables. But no OBC with a cable running thru it.
Looks like converting to an IQ system would require buying on OBC in addition to wiring harness, controller, and motor. I will probably just upgrade the motor from PlumQuick or ?.
Also, my serial number begins with JE1440-XXXXXX.

BGW

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TahoeDawgZ71

The new cars don't have the OBC. You could purchase the IQ controller and IQ wire harness. Then you could perform the OBC bypass procedure to the wire harness to make the car operate without one. Then you can buy a standalone charger such as a DPI to charge your vehicle. I'm not sure if the new E.R.I.C. charger will work on a car without the new controller like the one you have on your car now. For some reason the sense lead wire is plugged into the controller now so I'm assuming it plays a role in charging. I'm guessing the controller now serves as an OBC as well, but I'm not sure. It could be just for monitoring purposes and it may charge fine as a standalone charger, not sure. I haven't been around many of these cars yet.

scooterman

That sense wire it most likely the protection from accidentally pressing the go pedal while it is charging.

MY 2 cents, the newer system is they way to go, aftermarket hasn't caught up to the excel system but it is time they do. I'd rather not have the OBC in the first place, call PQ and see what they can do for you.

txpres

I think that is probably the way I will go. I think I will use it as is for a while. It runs pretty good (23mph) so I can wait a while before upgrading the motor.
May just upgrade the cables to 4ga.

scooterman

Do you know what amperage that controller is?

scottyb

It's about time Club Car spit the bit on the OBC era

txpres

I seem to remember that it said 250 amp on the outside label. But I could be wrong.
I decided to use 4 ga wires. Ordered from Scotty. Probably overkill with the stock controller, but I may decide to upgrade the controller and motor in the future.

scooterman

Yea that isn't really overkill, when you load the motor it helps and also If you upgrade that is one less thing to deal with.

DJBlade

You are correct. The OBC is now built into the controller on the E.R.I.C. charger.

txpres

If the controller is different, I wonder if the motor is the same?
Since I plan on upgrading the motor, I sure hope this is not the first year of a different design.