Battery terminals melting

Tigerted

I have a 2005 EZ-GO TXT that is giving me some battery issues. We are using it for a hunting cart so we had a lift added along with all terrain tires.

When I initially purchased it, it had all 2007 Pacer 6v batts. We put it through its paces on our lease on one of the last hunts of the season last year and what we thought was a a loose connection on one of the batteries caused arcing and totally melted the battery terminal. Changed that battery to an energizer from Sams club and it melted a little too although we have managed to rig it to keep working.

Brought it back to the lease for the first time this year and now two of the terminals on other batteries have started to melt. However, this time, I'm certain it was not due to a loose connection as I am mindful to check it periodically.

Any thought on this? I will note that the motor is small and we are using it to go up and down some steep hills. Could stress on the batts cause them to heat up enough to melt the terminals?

BGW

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GarageBuilt

Up grade your battery cables & also the motor cables. Its just a matter of time be fore you over work the stock controller. But the bigger cables will be the best place to start.

Tigerted

Had just put on new battery cables. Have not done the motor cables. I'll try that next

dirtysouth

Are the new cables heavier than the old ones?

Tigerted

No, I think both are 6ga. The old ones were in pretty bad shape though. Should I go with 4?

scottyb

You have to use golf cart cable or welder's cable make sure you are not using 12v automotive battery cables as the strand count is too low. Yes you should be using 4ga.

Tigerted

I bought the premade set from a local cart dealer.

bond007

I'll tell you how this will go....cause I have been through it all with my 97 TXT EzGo, its one thing after another. The bigger tires change your gear ratio; the speed is faster on flat ground but on hills it's running the motor at less RPM than it should be at because you're geared too high. You need that motor running at or close to its designed rpm. The system is under increased load when starting off and going up inclines and it generates heat in the weak spots (or places with most resistance). It should only be under high load (bogging down) for short periods of time. You are lengthening that time by basically hill climbing in high gear and it causes heating of the cables and connections due to resistance. When it's not at the optimal RPM for the motor for a longer period of time it heats up the weak spots more and more. It will make all the parts eventually fail. The first places it shows up are bad or corroded connections (bad wires and battery terminals). When you add bigger cables the weak spot will be forward reverse cable connections and contacts (in my case) and battery terminals. You will have to upgade the f/r switch. When you get a bigger controller (more amps) the weak spots get more current and they get hotter faster. All those upgrades are to get more amps to your motor. To upgrade a motor you need bigger cables, controller, and f/r switch). All the electrical upgrades kinda go hand in hand and can set you back a lot for all of it. You can easily put $1500 to $2500 just in these upgrades. If you start upgrading power instead of gears, be prepared to spend a lot of time working on this stuff because the weak spots start jumping around every time you upgrade a component in the factory "balanced" electrical system.

The best thing I know of for the money is to change your rear end gears (around $350-$400) to get the ratio back down to where it spins at its designed RPM for a higher percentage of the time you are driving it. It will drop your top speed but you won't bog down so much on hils because you have more torque. You might or might not want to do larger cables after that depending on whether it heats up or not. The reason I say that is that I've been told several times that the factories have a "balanced" set of cables in size and length of each cable for the stock controllers, motors, motor rpm, and tire size; with that the whole balanced system warms up a little under load. Once you mess with that balance with larger cables only, then the cables won't heat up but the things the cables are connected to will heat up more because the resistance isn't balanced. I'd rather a cable heat up and melt than a $130 battery terminal. At least it will let you know you need to either replace all the other stuff to get more power ($2000) or drive less hills, keep extra cables on hand, and stop to let it all cool off before and after hills. Odd matched or individually replaced batteries can create spots of more resistance too. You might want to have all the batteries checked as well. If you get the gearing and speed back down to around the factory level or lower geared than factory, you might can get what you want without spending $2000 on electrical upgrades.

If you can afford it go ahead and spend 3 grand on all of it and save yourself a lot of work.

P.S. Hey I'm not a pro at this and I don't know much about the electrical tech stuff I have had to tackle each of these things over and over with my cart over the last 8 years and I feel I would have been better off just changing the gears to start with (I couldn't find any then) with everything else being factory. Once you upgade one electrical component, another starts giving trouble.

SpoiledRotten

K9Kev

Very good response and post