Electric Heater and Battery Life

[ricksheridan]

I just bought a 2004 EZGO TXT SE and it came with an electric heater. Guy I bought it from said it came with it installed new from EZ-GO as an add on option.
Three people at my course have said not to use it, as it will ruin my batteries in under a year? I am guessing they used it a lot during initial battery break in and took battery capacity below 50%? I have about 10 my recharge cycles to get a good break in so will not use it until then.

I have brand new Trojan T105s. Looking online I don't really see a maximum amperage draw requirement?

I can't find the amperage pull of the heater, but will get that after break in and I turn the heater on. I can see it shortening run time, but will it really de-grade the battery life as long as I use it intermittantly and don't run the batteries down to low?

[shadowman]

anything extra on the battery pack is gonna draw them down some things faster than others............i wouldn,t use it until batteries were broke in and than only if really needed.....................its all in how you use it....is getting a extra 12 volt battery to run it out of the question? that could also be an option ..............................

[dougmcp]

The electric heater option on these carts is not very effective.
It is only about 180 watts maximum which is about 10% of what a standard electric household space heater is.
It uses about the same amount of power that your headlights and tail lights would use.

To give you a little comparison, your cart motor uses about 3000 watts while cruising and as much as 3 times that amount under full acceleration.

It won't hurt your batteries, it will shorten your run time but that is all.
You can use it even while you are breaking in your batteries.
It is advisable that the heaters use a 36v to 12v reducer as opposed to just 2 batteries as is customary with Ezgo carts.

[ricksheridan]

Originally Posted by dougmcp

The electric heater option on these carts is not very effective.
It is only about 180 watts maximum which is about 10% of what a standard electric household space heater is.
It uses about the same amount of power that your headlights and tail lights would use.

To give you a little comparison, your cart motor uses about 3000 watts while cruising and as much as 3 times that amount under full acceleration.

It won't hurt your batteries, it will shorten your run time but that is all.
You can use it even while you are breaking in your batteries.
It is advisable that the heaters use a 36v to 12v reducer as opposed to just 2 batteries as is customary with Ezgo carts.

Thanks that is kind of what I was thinking. I have the propane heater that goes in the cup holder so will use that. Sometimes we take our daughter golfing though, so will be nice to turn on the electric and warm it up a bit and not as big of a burn threat as the propane. I turned it on and it gets hot to touch but not enough to really burn you. I will check out the 36V to 12V reducer.