necessary electronics for a cart.

surfdog

Hi All, I want to get an electric cart for my wife to drive around a very steeply hilled town. I'm told by the locals to get a forty eight volt, six eight volt batteries, some sort of on board charger that is suppose to maintain the batteries (this cart will be sitting for four months sometimes), and a converter for the lighting. My questions are first off what are these devices specifically, like what, by name am I looking for?
2) If I buy a 36 volt cart and I need to buy all these other parts, can I convert it to 48 volt or is it better to buy a 48 volt to start.
3) what would be the best setup to get a dependable, long lived cart, like what charger, converter or controller and so forth.
Thanks

BGW

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on Buggies Gone Wild Golf Cart Forum

Jerj7907

I love my RXV and it is already 48 volts. Add a DC-DC reducer 48 volts to 12 volts and good to go. The only thing is if it sits for a long period of time being electric the charger will not maintain batterys. You will need to unplug from cart let system reset and then plug back in again every so often. When my cart sits for a week or so I will just unplug for a day then plug back in the following day. The 48 volts will help greatly on hills.

JohnnieB

Will most of the driving be done of paved/gravel road and hard packed dirt trails?
What speed is desired?
Using the attached chart, what do you mean by "very steeply hilled town"?
(IE: The steepest incline I routinely climb is about 30°, or a bit less than 60% Grade, and I was doing it with a stock PDS cart @ 36V)

Whatever battery pack voltage you decide on, use the highest Amp-Hour capacity batteries for the longest run-time (or distance traveled)

On-Board chargers tend to be more expensive than Portable or Stand-Alone chargers.
Whether or not you actually need an On-Board charger depends on several factors.
With a Portable charger, your travel radius is limited to roughly 1/2 of your run-time.
With an On-Board charger, your travel distance is more or less unlimited, if you can find an AC outlet to plug the cart into and have the time to wait until the batteries are recharged (4-6 hours typically)

If the cart will sit for extended periods of time (Weeks or Months), get a charger that goes into a Float charge mode after the regular charge cycle ends.

-------------

The first thing is to define what you want the cart to do, which will dictate what type drive system to start with.

Once that is decided, then it is a matter of deciding what upgrades to the drive system will be needed to reach that goal.

Attached Images

Hill Grade Conversion Chart.JPG (71.3 KB, 0 views)

kgsc

And you said you wanted electric.. Is there a reason ? Gas may be a better application for what you want.

scottyb

Great chart Johnnie.

surfdog

Thanks for the replies.
Johnnieb, thanks for taking the time to write in detail. I'm guessing a bit, but I think most grades here are under 20 degrees with occasional short steeper stretches. The cart doesn't need to go faster than 20 mph and the streets here are cobble stone, a bit rough, lots of speed bumps. and a little packed dirt. Though mostly my wife and I would use it, occasionally the neighbors like to pile on for a ride back up the hill from town. On my old gas G19, the front end would lift (with two adults on the back) and could barely make the turns. On my current 99 EZ-GO, (lifted long travel) any weight on the back makes it impossible to drive safely. I see the electric ones seem much more stable with a pile of people on them and I'm assuming the weight of the batteries help stabalise them.
Besides, my wife doesn't care for the jacked up big block look and finds it difficult to drive. I think she likes the quiet too.

JohnnieB

Something similar to what I'm doing might be fill the bill.

Basically it's a stock height PDS cart with a seventh 6V battery for greater range.
I also went with higher than standard AH batteries for the same reason.
I had an On-Board charger, but found I didn't have need for it since my travels didn't take anywhere I could plug it in, so when it failed, I replaced it with a Portable type.
If I ever have to go further than I can get to and back on a single charge, I'll just toss it in the bag well.

Golf carts have mechanical, drum type brakes on the rear wheels only and you have to go to at least a 10" diameter wheel to install disk brakes, so the regenerative braking found in the PDS and DCS type drive systems is great for keeping the speed in check coasting down hills without using the brakes all the time.

I estimate my cart will run in the low to mid 20's, but having a programmable controller, I can back off the max speed.
And you don't have to push the pedal to the metal when cruising.