Thermal Shutdown of my controller

Cart Head

Hi, Thanks for your help. I have a 2008 36V PDS cart with a lift and 23" tires. Everything else is stock.I'm trying to determine if I am experiencing Thermal Shutdown of my controller.
2013 Crown Battery's
Full pack charge is 38.6
At the time of this problem the pack is 35.1 and all battery's
read at about 5.8.
So the thing just got slower and slower until it would only crawl. If I let it sit for a while it will run but slow and not very long.

What do you guy's think? Thanks

BGW

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Bmatlock00

Sounds like you're running your batteries completely dead....

Cart Head

Isn't that a good pack charge?

My idiot light SOC says so. LOL

branson

38.2 is 100 percent. 36.5 or so is totally dead. how much runtime did you get before you saw that low voltage ?

Cart Head

Not really much run time at all. I only go a few blocks at a time maybe 5-6 times. I guess the SOC meter screwed me. Doesn't seem like much to me. These are new batts and I broke them in properly. Probably been charged 15-20 times.

scottyb

Stock cart components are engineered for 18" tires and golf.
If you increase the tire size by 1/3 you will have controller failure soon than later. Although right now it seems like battery charge seems to be the issue.

kellybell

x 2!

radioman

Weak batteries or your charger not charging them properly. What does the SOC indicator show when it slows to a crawl? If you suspect your charger borrow one and compare readings after a good charge.

JohnnieB

I see three RED FLAGS waving here.

1. Tire height:
If the cart's body has to be lifted for tire clearance, the tires are too tall to turn with a stock drive system. If you are going to run 23" tires you need a 500A controller and if you run a 500A controller, you need something more robust than a stock PDS motor.

2. LED Bargraph type SoC meter:
The ability to tell the "truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" are not attributes typically associated with this type device. Do your batteries and your billfold a favor and replace it with a DVM type battery meter.

3. At-Rest Voltage timing.
Battery voltage readings taken too soon after the battery charger shuts off will be artificially high and battery voltage readings taken too soon after the cart stops moving will be artificially low. I'm not sure, but I suspect that both the before (38.6V) and after (35.1V) battery voltages given fall into those categories.

To determine if the batteries are being "fully" charged, let them rest (neither charged nor discharged) about 12 hours after the charger shuts off automatically. A 36V pack should measure 38.2V, each 6V battery should measure 6.37V and all six should be within 0.1V of the others.

To get an accurate SoC after the batteries have been used, let them rest for half an hour after the cart stops.

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Being relatively new, the batteries are probably good, but you may have charger/charging issues.

There is a huge incompatibility issue between the tire height and the controller/motor capabilities.

radioman

LED Bargraph type SoC indicators should be outlawed.