Battery problems

[JohnnieB]

You've got a Total Charge IV charger.
It is an automatic charger, so it shouldn't turn off until battery pack voltage reaches 44-46V or the safety timer times out (12-18hr???)

Attached is The Owner's, Service and Parts manual for Total Charge III and IV chargers (The difference between a III & IV is the Digital Elapsed Time Meter on the IV)

IIRC, you mentioned something indicating the elapsed time meter runs while the charger is attached to cart.
From looking at the schematic, all that means is that it is detecting the carts battery pack, not that the charger is working.

I might be wrong, but I don't think your charger is working, or at least it isn't working right.

Here is a quick and dirty test. With Charger unplugged from AC power and from cart, put an ohmmeter across the two contacts in the charger's output plug.
Should read open one way and close to a short the other.
If it reads open both way, trace out the output circuit with ohmmeter.
If it does read open and short like it should, we need to do some more testing.

[simple man]

Just a thought, after seeing your photo, try pressing in the red button on the lower right of your charger. That's a circuit breaker. It looks like it's kind of out further than I remember seeing most of them. That's an easy one, if that's all it is!

[Electrician]

....simple.... I love your cart, if it was mine the sheet metal would be removed though

[Electrician]

Originally Posted by JohnnieB

Here is a quick and dirty test. With Charger unplugged from AC power and from cart, put an ohmmeter across the two contacts in the charger's output plug.
Should read open one way and close to a short the other.
If it reads open both way, trace out the output circuit with ohmmeter.
If it does read open and short like it should, we need to do some more testing.

I do not understand your test, but I read the manual it appears the relay on the board is bad.... I think?

with your test correct polarity reads open and reverse reads short? Am I understanding you correctly. I have a digital meter and it reads 128m one way and 160m the other

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by Electrician

I do not understand your test, but I read the manual it appears the relay on the board is bad.... I think?

with your test correct polarity reads open and reverse reads short? Am I understanding you correctly. I have a digital meter and it reads 128m one way and 160m the other

With the charger already plugged into AC power, plug it into the cart.
There should be a short delay (a few seconds) and then you should hear the relay click (maybe-some are quiet), transformer hum and the ammeter should jump up to about 25A. If not, the control board is probably bad. (Added - Or there is no load on the transformer)

From the Ohmic reads you got, I suspect there is also a problem in the output circuit.

As for your question: "with your test correct polarity reads open and reverse reads short?", it depends on what correct/reverse polarity we are talking about. The way the output plug is marked, yes, with respect to the internal diodes, no.

The fact that the "+" output from a charger (or any DC power supply) is connected to the cathode of the diodes and the "-" output is connected to the anodes, trips up a lot of people.

With the meter leads connected one way, the diodes are forward biased and there is a complete current path through the diodes, fuses, ammeter and the two transformer secondaries that are tied together to form a center tap. Connected the other way, the diodes are reverse biased and should read open (or in the megaohm range)

Since you get high resistance in both directions, something is wrong.

[Electrician]

does the ammeter on a charger have any purpose with the controls because it charges but times out, and the ammeter never fluctuates.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by Electrician

does the ammeter on a charger have any purpose with the controls because it charges but times out, and the ammeter never fluctuates.

The ammeter is akin to a power-on light. It tells you if the charger is charging or not and your ammeter is telling you your charger is not charging.
This is further substantiated by battery voltages in the 6.0-6.1V range after resting 6 hours.

If the ammeter doesn't jump up into the 25A range and stay there for 15-20 minutes (or longer since your batteries are 50% discharged), than drop down to 2-6A for several hours, your charger isn't working right.

Your charger may be doing something, but if it isn't fully charging your batteries (6.37V per battery - 38.2V for the pack) it isn't working properly.

Like I said in my previous reply, the ohmmeter readings you got across the output plug aren't what you should have gotten, so something is wrong in the charger's output circuit.

Section B of the manual I posted tells you how to troubleshoot the charger as well as containing schematic and wiring diagrams.
(Note: Troubleshooting Paragraph 5 on page B-2 continues on page B-8.)

To fully answer the question you posted above, the ammeter is an integral part of the output circuit since all output current passes through it, but it's only function is to indicate how much current is passing through it and has no bearing on charge rate or charge time.