Your real voltage usage

[skipsmith521]

I am familiar with the SOC chart and understand you should not go below 50% charge.

I have a 36 volt cart. I have posted before that at 37.5.volts...i tell my kids to drive it home and get to charging. This is a long ways from 50% SOC. My son is always asking can we go lower. I tell him 37.5 and he brings it in around 37.2.

I am curious as to what people really do and how low will they push their battery pack normally before heading to the charger.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[cgtech]

In my opinion, the "never, ever go below 50%" does not reflect real-world useage (at least by my customers). It would result in longer battery life if you never went below 50%. Think of it this way, if you bought a new automobile, and they said "never go below a half full tank, or we will void your warranty". How well is that gonna go over? The results are proven that your batteries will last longer if you never, ever go below 50%, but are you gonna shut the cart off at 50% and walk the rest of the way home? I think not! This chart is not from trojan (they have one too), but it still represents the effects of deeper cycle use on lead batteries. They expect about 375 cycles if you drain it to 0% soc everytime, or about 1000 cycles if you drain it to 50% everytime. One daily use of "discharge" (using it)- then charge is 1 cycle. People never read the warranty when they buy, in their mind it says "4 years". If you are a heavy user, you can "wear-out" the battery warranty sooner than 4 yr. On modern carts, the controller records AH used as a cumulative total (most cart warranties are around 20,000ah total). Also, if you send it in for "not working right or poor range" and the batteries are below a certain voltage (low state of charge, sometimes lower than 50%) , its considered battery neglect by the OEM, not covered by warranty. I dont void battery warranty unless i see big signs of neglect (if your cart comes in with 2v per battery, thats neglect, zero water in cells, thats neglect)

[scottyb]

A chart like the one above shows exactly what you get over a lifetime of discharge at this or that % of depletion. I try to keep my batteries in the upper 75% and my wife runs them down to 50% overall we average 70% because I am the predominant user.

Basically your son can draw the pack down further but it will cost you in terms of longevity but, maybe not so much you can't afford him a little more run time

[teecro]

Originally Posted by skipsmith521

I am familiar with the SOC chart and understand you should not go below 50% charge.

I have a 36 volt cart. I have posted before that at 37.5.volts...i tell my kids to drive it home and get to charging. This is a long ways from 50% SOC. My son is always asking can we go lower. I tell him 37.5 and he brings it in around 37.2.

I am curious as to what people really do and how low will they push their battery pack normally before heading to the charger.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

This is not a direct anwser to your question but what this person does and what a very large collective does is keep the cart plugged into the charger whenever it is not being used. This way it is always fully charged and available to go the max distance at any time if so desired.

Lead acid batteries do not develop memory so it does not matter to them if they are getting a used a little and charged a lot so long as they are not overcharged by a faulty charger.

What matters to them is the depth of their discharge before being recharged; the deeper the discharge and the length of time spent in the discharged state is what kills off your batteries.

So what matters is keeping them fully charged as much as practical to slow down their natural death by sulfation...