Battery keeps dying

[beachcarter]

Ok guys I think I found my problem. Dave, you had instructed me to disconnect the positive cable from the battery and take one lead from my multimeter and place it on the positive cable and the other lead and place it on the positive battery terminal. I was doing it wrong. I placed the positive and negative leads of the meter directly on the terminals of the battery. That is where I was seeing 4.5 amp draw. After doing it Dave's way I saw 0 amps. Now this is because everything was still disconnected. One by one I started reconnecting the accessories and VOILA. When I reconnected the lights the amps jumped to 12. It may not necessarily be that my lights are bad though. When I installed my radio on the cart I got power for the radio by tapping into positive lead to the lights. When I first pulled the cart out the garage this spring and installed the fresh battery I notice the radio didnt work and found the fuse in the back of the unit was blown. Im betting if I disconnect the radio the amperage will drop. Unfortunately I have to leave for work and dont have anymore time to mess with it this morning. I will tinker with itmore this afternoon and report back.

[beachcarter]

OK guys, so now with everything hooked up and the positive lead of my multimeter on the positive battery terminal and the negative lead of the multimeter going to the positive battery cable I am reading 4.8 amps. When I unplug the harness going into the back of the radio the amps drops to 0. Plug it back in and it goes back up to 4.8amps. Any idea what would cause the radio to pull these amps? Obviously it needs some constant pull for the memory to hold the time and programmed radio stations. As I stated before I was seeing 12 amps, not sure why it now has dropped to 4.8 amps. Is 4.8 amps the normal draw for radio memory? I hate to replace a perfectly good working radio but I cant have my battery constantly dying either. Any ideas?

[Dave Box]

Something is very sadly wrong, your radio should be pulling milli amps not amps. I am surprised that the thing has not caught fire. The only line that should be constant 12 volts is the memory wire so if you disconnect that and reconnect the radio is everything now good?

Dave

[racin161]

I think I'd pull that radio and call it a day. No wonder the fuse had blown.I think I would revisit my radio wiring diagram.Water also may have got in there and is shorting components.What ya think DAVE?

[simple man]

Originally Posted by beachcarter

Ok guys I think I found my problem. Dave, you had instructed me to disconnect the positive cable from the battery and take one lead from my multimeter and place it on the positive cable and the other lead and place it on the positive battery terminal. I was doing it wrong. I placed the positive and negative leads of the meter directly on the terminals of the battery. That is where I was seeing 4.5 amp draw. After doing it Dave's way I saw 0 amps. Now this is because everything was still disconnected. One by one I started reconnecting the accessories and VOILA. When I reconnected the lights the amps jumped to 12. It may not necessarily be that my lights are bad though. When I installed my radio on the cart I got power for the radio by tapping into positive lead to the lights. When I first pulled the cart out the garage this spring and installed the fresh battery I notice the radio didnt work and found the fuse in the back of the unit was blown. Im betting if I disconnect the radio the amperage will drop. Unfortunately I have to leave for work and dont have anymore time to mess with it this morning. I will tinker with itmore this afternoon and report back.

Hopefully your meter has self protection! A battery is capable of 600 - 800amps! If you had the amp scale selected when you connected the meter this way, it may have damaged your meter. I would have it checked to make sure it is reading properly!

[beachcarter]

Its possible the radio got wet but not likely. It is in one of those marine housings with a flip up cover to access the radio. The radio itself may not be bad after all. The yellow wire goes to a constant 12V for memory and the red goes to a 12V switched source. Since my ignition switch is the simple 2 wire on/off I wired the red wire from the radio to a toggle switch to turn it on and off. Last summer while running around on the cart the toggle switch broke so I removed the toggle switch and connected the 2 leads going to the switch together in order to get the radio working on the fly and just used the power button of the radio to turn it on and off with the intentions of replacing the toggle switch when I got home. Well life happens and I forgot to replace the toggle switch so as a result both the red and yellow wires of the radio are connected to a constant hot. I need to correct the wiring by adding a toggle switch but still even with both leads going to hot and the radio off I don't think it should be pulling 4.5 amps. I'm going to install a toggle switch today and see if that helps. If not I'm going to replace the radio.

[racin161]

your 12v switched can go to the key switch on the on position side. With the key off check for voltage at the switch when you find it connect it to the other terminal. Now it will only be on when the key is on. Still doesn't explain the high amp draw but see what that does and no toggle.

[Doc's BoneCracker]

Originally Posted by racin161

your 12v switched can go to the key switch on the on position side. With the key off check for voltage at the switch when you find it connect it to the other terminal. Now it will only be on when the key is on. Still doesn't explain the high amp draw but see what that does and no toggle.

[rcn11thacr]

Where is the voltage regulator located on a 98 ez-go? I have (almost) the same problem. Sorry to hijack the thread.

[ndmac]

typically under plastic cover just to the front of the battery. Will on the opposite side of the Solenoid. Square gatget with three wires molded into it.