2001 Club Car DS - Charging Issue

[ds46000]

I have a 2001 48-V Club Car DS (Serial Number begins with AA0130), with factory PowerDrive Charger.

Batteries are Powertron brand, approx. 1 year old & have been well maintained (proper water levels & always kept on charger when not in use).

This cart is located at our lake house, so we only use it occasionally. It stays parked under a covered shed. Went to use it this weekend, reverse seemed slower pulling out of the shed & then it only went a couple hundred feet in forward before completely dying. Had to push it onto a trailer to get it back home.

It has been exactly 1 month since the last time we used & charged it (I always make sure the charger clicks on, so I know it charged 1 month ago).

Brought it home to our house to keep an eye on it- first thing I did was charge it overnight. Go out today & it seems to be working fine. Battery pack is resting @ 52.00 Volts.

This is not the first time it's been slow in reverse, but we never drive it very far so if the batteries have been low before I wouldn't really notice it.

I guess my question/concern is this- seems like the charger is possibly not automatically kicking on when the batteries drain over time. Also- should the batteries be draining from full to completely dead in just 1 month time?

Temps have been in the 30's at night, and 50's during the day.

Just trying to provide as much info as possible.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for the help.

[Wakko47]

I thought I read that the standard chargers don't do any maintenance, just the intial charge. You'd need a 48v float/maintenance charger or Battery Saver.

[Sergio]

The Powerdrive/OBC combo does a charge every 15 days if it is left plugged to the cart.

The only time it fails is if you had a power outage that last more than 7 days.

Did You measure the voltage before charging?

If it was too low you probably have something draining the batteries.

If You want to charge the batteries more often that every 15 days you can add a $10 relay to the charger and plug it to a timer.

That is what I did when I used the Powerdrive 3:

https://www.buggiesgonewild.com/showthread.php?t=114303

[Wakko47]

Oops, duplicate.

Sergio, is that an indefinite loop? Theoretically you could leave the pack on for a year?

[ds46000]

Thanks Sergio - quick question:

Is there a particular diagnostic test that I could perform on the charger to confirm the 15 day recharging cycle operation is still working as it should? (aside from leaving it plugged in & checking the voltage every day for the next 2 weeks, which I will do if there's no way to test that particular part or function of the charger).

[Sergio]

ds46000, no test that I know of other than to do a charge then check the pack voltage after 13 days and then again after 16 days.

The voltage should be lower in 13 days and back to full in 16 days.

There is a time limit, I think 6 months when the OBC will no longer do a maintenance charge, presumably because the water level could be getting lower and someone should check and reset the process (You unplug the DC cord then plug back again after 5-10 seconds to reset the timer).

Wakko47, The relay inside the charger disconnects the "Sense" wire so in essence is the same as unplugging the DC cord so while technically you could run that way forever, in practice the water would get low.

I had mine connected to a smart plug so I used to charge the cart before I came home on Friday as I normally do not drive my cart during the week.


ds46000, if You have not reset the OBC in a while it is a good idea to do so.

Just remove the negative battery cable and leave it disconnected for 20 minutes to reset the OBC.

[ds46000]

Thanks- I'll reset the OBC & will keep it the cart plugged in with an eye on the battery pack voltages for the next couple weeks.

Appreciate the info!

[Wakko47]

That modification to the charger is really ingenious. If I were continuing to use the Powertron I would do that for sure.

[ds46000]

Just a quick update on this- the charger has been plugged in since 1/25 and the battery pack has been holding a pretty good charge, only losing approx 0.1 or 0.2 volts per day, which is fairly insignificant. The strange thing though, is the charger kicked on today automatically. So we are only talking 10 days as opposed to 15 days that I was expecting.

We have not had any power outages or anything.

I guess this particular charger has a 10 day auto-charge cycle. It's just the old manufacturer Powerdrive I charger.

Doesn't explain the cart being completely dead recently- guess I'll just keep an eye on it and see what happens.

Thoughts?