Battery Question

suppavillin

Hi guys. My batteries are 3 years old. I charge the cart every day until the charger shuts off. So I am assuming up to 100%.
I am not getting good run time. I am down to less than half power just riding for 15 mins. It used to drive me around for a little over 1 hour.

THE PROBLEM: It is an EZ-GO 2006. Standing in front of the cart facing it...My back right battery terminal is getting scalding hot. Its nice and tight and has a brand new wire on it after it fried the last 2. I am thinking about replacing all of the batteries. I have been riding the cart with some terminals getting hot for about 1 year now so I am guessing I damaged (ALL?) of the batteries. I got it down to just one terminal getting hot now but I can not stop it? Do you guys think I should just replace that one battery? Or should I just go ahead and put all nice new ones in there? I am leaning toward new ones because incase I damaged the others I do not want those to cause a problem with my 1 or 2 new batteries.
Do you think replacing the batteries would be the fix? This all started after I wired the lights to my main 6. Since than I un hooked the lights but the problem is still here. I think its a coincidence.
Thanks for the help in advance, I know you guys are great here.

BGW

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Volt_Ampere

If the terminal gets hot, you have a bad connection! Clean it again and make sure you have very clean bright metal on metal. That is the ONLY reason the terminal gets hot. It's remotely possible that the bad connection is inside the battery but I would be very surprised if it is.

yurtle

One other possibility is where the cable and lug are connected. A quality cable will have heat-shrink to protect the joint from corrosive gasses. It's possible to have a joint that looks good, but isn't.

JohnnieB

I suspect the battery terminals have been over-tightened.

The stud is actually a SS Hex-head bolt embedded in lead and if too much torque is applied when tighten in the nut holding the cable on it, the blot head moves in the lead, creating an air-gap for corrosion to form in, which in turn creates resistance and generates heat.

The torque spec on the battery studs is 95 to 105 in/lb, which is only about 8 ft/lb, so it is very, very, very easy to over-tighten them before you realize you are doing it.

I use a 1/4" drive screwdriver handle and socket so I don't unknowingly over do it.

If that is the problem, this may be helpful: http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/batte...nal-repair.php

suppavillin

Also the batteries are over 3 years old being used and charged every single day. How long should the batteries last me?
And would this hot terminal cause me to lose power very,very fast.?

JohnnieB

Anytime any cable or connection gets hot, electrical energy is being converted into heat rather than motion.
Your battery pack stores a limited amount of electrical energy, so run-time and distance traveled are reduced when things are getting hot.

How long batteries last depends on how deeply they are discharged, how often they are charged, climatic conditions and several other factors.

The attached chart is the theoretical life expectancy of Trojan batteries under ideal conditions.

What brand and model (or Amp-Hours) batteries do you have and what brand and model charger are you using?

Attached Images

SoC vs Theoretical Charge cycles with Voltages-2.JPG (114.0 KB, 0 views)

suppavillin

Ok thanks alot guys. I bought new batteries and put them in.
Now I have another question. I had a friend help. He connected my one battery negative to another negative. I didnt notice and I charged the cart for about 1 hour. Nothing bad happened from what I can see but what damage could that have done or did do that I dont know?

JohnnieB

Ouch!!!!!

Hopefully the battery didn't completely discharge and become reverse polarized, but it still may have been damaged.

One thing is definite, the battery pack is now imbalanced since one battery was discharging while the other five were charging.

That is a situation that has to be corrected or it will shorten the life expectancy of all six batteries rather than just one sick one.

Now that the batteries are wired correctly, charge the pack 3 or 4 times without discharging it or only discharging slightly.

Let them rest for 6-12 hours and measure the individual battery voltages.
If they are all within 0.1V of each other, you lucked out.
If not, find a 6V battery charger and charge the weak one about two hours for every Milli-volt (0.001V) it is below the at-rest voltage of the other five batteries.
(The time depends on how many amps the 6V charger puts out, so you'll have to play it be ear a bit.)

Once you get all six batteries within about 0.1V of each other, go ahead and break them in. Here is how. http://www.cartsunlimited.net/Batter...n_Methods.html

Good Luck!!!!

suppavillin

Thank you Jonnie. I can't beleive he did that. I was being so carful and makeing sure I did everything absolutly correct so there would be no excuses on why the batteries only last me so long.
Ok, I charged the batteries until it shut off, than took it for a short ride until I lost 1 bar. Now its on the charger again. Do you think im doing this right? I guess il do this 3 more times and than take it for a longer ride where I lose 2.5 bars and do that 10-20 times.? Thank you for this help.

Volt_Ampere

The one that was reversed was being discharged by the charger. Take individual voltage readings and see what it and the others are at. If it's way lower than the others, I would try to charge it individually.