Charging Issue

[BenAthar]

Ok after the kids were driving around on the cart, mind you it was fully charged and still had enough left for a short trip.
I have an 86 ezgo with the usual 6-6v batt setup. Resistor cart. I am having a problem with getting the batts charged back up. Did a meter test on the charger lead and it was 40v, checked all the batts and they're at 6v as well. Thought it might be either a loose wire on the batts or the resistor coil, which one was.
I am either thinking I may have a bad connection either on the charger receptacle or maybe the first battery the leads connect to is not charging and going through to all the rest of the batts.
Any suggestions, may need to do a diagnostic test with the cart jacked up and the charger on it. Charger seems to be working ok, might check that next.

[scottyb]

Check voltage at the charge receptacle to make sure all battaries are connected to the circuit?

[BenAthar]

didn't do that, but will. Hmmm...definitely has me puzzled. Need to brush up on all the volt/amp rules.

[BenAthar]

ok checked at the charge receptacle and got 39v....which I'm thinking the charge meter is not registering right or my batts may need a flush/tune up(maybe). Will need a batt fluid meter to check for sure.

[scottyb]

39 is possible if it came off the charger recently?

[BenAthar]

yes. I will do a drive test tomorrow to be sure. if it drives like normally, then I may need to look into a charge meter or the connections/wires

[BenAthar]

ok after 2 days of being on the charger, I'm thinking I may have a bad battery. will do a cable free test to be sure that I'm getting at least 6v. Which kind of bites since I wanted to drive it this weekend, since no storms!
maybe once I get a few bucks saved, might have to have it trailered in to have a checkup anyways.
Kind of weird that it wouldn't hold a charge after it's been that low before and took all day to charge back up.....crazy..

[BenAthar]

I saw in another post about checking the batt cables, just might have to do that and see about getting some new batts.....time to go pricing the local shops for a few upgrade parts!

[BenAthar]

ok here's an update....after checking the cables, batts, and other wiring using a meter and even each individual battery to make sure I didn't have a bad one, it turns out to be the state of charge meter that is fried!
It's a curtis LED model, after searching through some of the sponsors it's about 50-75$. Which seems rather steep for a board and a few diodes! But found a more analog version for cheaper that I will get to put on there. Not to mention to start having the charger on the cart till I get the charge meter replaced.
Still can't wait to upgrade the cart, but Will be placing an order at ScottyB's here soon for the controller pkg.