Another battery question....

[anziosaint]

I just picked up a 48v 2004 Club Car DS with Interstate batteries.... I know, I know many of you guys have nothing good to say about Interstate.... They would not be my first choice either but they were in it and the price was right. Anyways, they are date stamped "J8" which I am assuming is Oct. 2018. They are pretty clean and not bulging. All have plenty of water as well. Here's the issue. When I went to pick this thing up the I took my DMM and got a reading of only 47.8V !!!! I rode the cart around and took it to a hill where, as you can imagine, it slowed to a crawl. I asked him what was up and he told me that it was plugged in last about a week ago and he thought maybe his kids ran it hard and put it away without him knowing. So I get it home and put it on the factory powerdrive charger. The volts start coming up and after awhile the pack starts bubbling. During the charge, i check the voltage and the highest the pack got was just over 57 volts. It charged for about 14-15 hrs and the charger shut down. I checked the battery level 12 hrs. later and the pack read 50.9v. I ran the cart a bit around the yard and up a 300 yard 2-3% incline and it felt weak on the hill. Not crawling, but it didnt have the giddy-up my personal cart has with 2018 US batteries. (same make/model of cart)
So i parked it in the garage and used a stand alone smart charger that has clips and i attached them to the pack instead of using the factory charger. I monitored the pack with my DMM and after 45min the batteries were charging at 58.5v. (higher than the factory charger ever took them) The charger itself was showing just over 59v but I trust the DMM as a true reading. As I write this they are charging and I am not sure what the end result will be but I got to ask..... Does it sound like these batteries were neglected to the point they cant be brought back to a strong running pack? I just don't understand how after 12 hours to settle and a reading of 50.9v they are don"t seem to have any pep. I thought that was a good reading for pack after a charge? These batteries are only about a year old? *NOTE* Individually all batteries tested the exact same with a single battery being one/tenth of a volt higher than the other 5 so that rules out a individual battery being bad right?

Even if the batteries are bad, the price was worth it for the cart so i am OK with the purchase. If the sale was dependent on batteries I would have ran the other way.

What are your thoughts?

[Htownblue]

Voltage and amperage. Pack has high enough voltage but not ability to deliver amperage. Likely causes include weak or dead cell or poor connections. Post your individual battery voltages at full charge. Then post individual battery voltages under full load.

[anziosaint]

I am gonna pull the cables tomorrow and clean up the terminals, replace with new cables, and then use a load tester on the batteries individually. I have a 6-12v load tester. What should I be looking for when testing each battery individually?

Or...... am I better off just using some clips to hook to the pack and my volt meter? I could just look at the meter while working it right?


I will post individual battery readings tomorrow

[alchemy]

It's hard telling what he did with them. Just keep using and charging for a week or so and see if there is a change. I have new batteries 3 years old now because I thought my batteries were done but they came back to normal before I began to install the new ones. In that case my memory is foggy but I think I just watered them and it just had not had time to mix yet from charge and discharge cycles and driving around. Water addition can dissolve sulfate a little too.

[anziosaint]

Water levels were all fine. I may lose a little as I apply these long charge sessions though. I hope they come to life again.

[Fairtax4me]

Two things.
First, check the voltage on each battery while they are under load. Often rest voltage can be normal, but the voltage can drop quite a bit when the cart is actually moving.

Two would be o check the MCOR throttle linkage. Common issue on those carts is the throttle bar wears and doesn't turn the MCOR all the way to 100% throttle. It will feel like the cart takes off OK on flat ground but since it's only sending maybe 80% throttle to the controller it will creep up hills.
Ideally you want to hear the microswitch in the MCOR click within the first inch of pedal travel. If you have to push the pedal more than that to hear the switch click the linkage bar is worn. A quick fix for that is a zip tie, or some people cut a short section of 1/4" fuel hose and stick it on the bar where it contacts the pedal.

[anziosaint]

I just checked the accelerator pedal and it does not click until I depress the pedal like 3 inches! So this is all new to me with the Mcor. What are the details of fixing this?

[Fairtax4me]

Look down at the base of the pedal right where the pedal goes through the floor and you'll see the top arm of the linkage rod that goes to the MCOR.
That upper rod gets pushed by the pedal and over time it wears out where the pedal rubs against it. Slide a piece of 1/4" fuel hose over that rod, or put a couple zip ties around it to fill the space between the pedal and the rod. Now when you push the pedal it pushes against the rod much sooner and will be able to turn the MCOR further so it will reach 100% throttle signal.

You can also have excessive play in the pedal pivot bushings causing the pedal to not push the linkage as far as it should. These should be replaced if they are worn.

[anziosaint]

Ok, I just sleeved the top prong of that rod and to be honest it still seems to take about 2 inches to get the “click” in the MCOR. I just had someone show up at the house but I am going to go and do a drive test. Batteries are holding a resting voltage of 51.3v after 12 hours. We will see how it does. I will also try to get individual load readings.

[alchemy]

Originally Posted by anziosaint

Ok, I just sleeved the top prong of that rod and to be honest it still seems to take about 2 inches to get the “click” in the MCOR. I just had someone show up at the house but I am going to go and do a drive test. Batteries are holding a resting voltage of 51.3v after 12 hours. We will see how it does. I will also try to get individual load readings.

51.3 would be good for me but that depends on how much water is in them or the electrolyte level. Mine was just 51.6 while within 1/4" of the plates and now stable at 51.0 after adding water to the level indicator (the ridge at the base of the inlet cylinder). People are not recommending that full now. If you filled them lower I don't know how you get them even unless you have a float gauge or plastic measuring device. They will vary in voltage by how much electrolyte is in each one (how dilute they are).
That reading was also after "mixing"- taking it down to 50% SOC then charging and allowing to stabilize which I found is necessary to do once after adding water. Usually I charge them at 80% SOC. I always wash mine down softly with a hose especially after a heavy charge like that. It just rose to a stable .4V more doing that 50% SOC thing. I just did that yesterday. Those batteries are almost 7 years old from my other cart plus two new ones (Because my other cart was 36V). I'm guessing I probably drove it at least 15 miles over 4 days before it got to 50% SOC. As for amps, you might see a couple deflect too much under load but in my case they do that sometimes and usually come back with my techniques. Why, is speculative but as I said before, more water dissolves more sulfate and heavy charging helps knock it off.
For the forum in general there is a scientific journal that shows solubility of lead sulfate in solutions of varying sulfuric concentrations at various temperatures. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja01327a019

The original set of trojan t-145's I just got in my new used club car are now very stable at 38.2V in my 36V cart. I'll have to see how long they run but it already climbs hills definitely not like "bad batteries" and the amps has improved greatly as well. They were originally .26V to 2V, past the plates, and had sat for 6 months and in the winter with the battery light on and the cases bulging. The first charge, after adding water, in pairs for 12V using a car charger, got them to like 6.1-6.2V each and then eventually to 6.37 average by the technique I mentioned. I've done this many times. It depends on how much time you have, how much it's worth messing with, etc, etc. My time is worth a lot more than messing with batteries but in my case it just drives me crazy knowing I could get them back up rather than trashing them

sorry about all the edits, just trying to make it easier to read