State of Charge vs Battery Life - Chart.

[JohnnieB]

I modified the % Discharge vs Battery life chart to State of Charge vs Life Expectancy since SoC is more commonly referred to when discussing batteries.

Hopefully it makes more sense this way.

[wizardket]

Though on the surface, it looks like the number of years life is longer, that is misleading. If I daily ran the pack down to 80% and recharged or ran it down daily to 50% and recharged, then your numbers are correct. However I would have got around 250% more use of the cart while reducing battery life by 60%.

But if I was to go 80% day one and 60% day 2 then recharge, ~ 1600 recharges (1 every 2 days 8.8 Yr). If I recharged daily I would get a little over 2900 (7.9 Yr). If it took me 3 days to get to 50% I would get 1250 charges (1 every 3 days = 10.2 Yr).

[JohnnieB]

Yeah, there are a lot of "What ifs" since few people consistently use their carts the same amount each day or recharge them with equal regularity.

In addition, it isn't linear. Discharging to 80% one day and then from 80% down to 60% and recharging is not the same as 80% every day and recharging every night.
As I understand it, one Discharge/Charge cycle equates to 9 holes of golf, but 18 holes of golf before recharging uses up 3 cycles rather than 2.

Basically, the chart shows that the more golf cart batteries are discharged before they are recharged, the less the projected theoretical life expectancy and points out that we should strive to keep them as fully charged as possible, or practical. There are so many cart owners that don't know or don't understand or have forgotten this fundamental truth.

Attached is what I started with. (Thanks Scotty - I believe it is originally from Trojan and is based on their testing.)
It says the same, but I had to look at it several time to figure out what it was saying and I've been reading charts and graphs for a while.

[scottyb]

Sheesh! I told you to read it in the mirror, how much simpler could my instruction be

[JohnnieB]

Sorry, one of the antennae on my tinfoil hat hit the mirror and busted it.

[scottyb]

That explains why all my email is bouncing back