Charger v. Batteries v. Solenoid

[abthompson07]

Sorry for the long post but I’m new to working on electric carts and I have a peculiar issue that has my novice expertise stumped.

So I have recently in the last few months purchased a 2009 YDRE. It performed outstanding until about 4 days ago. I had been plugging it in whenever I wasn’t on it but realized I haven’t seen how long the batteries would last (there is no meter or gauge indicating battery life). I was curious because the previous owner said they were just over a year old. It had been a couple days of intermittent riding, Long past what I would have expected them to last without charge, and The Wife was riding the niece and nephew around and it finally died. I was not present but my brother in law appropriately towed it back to the house and put it on charge. The next day I hop on to go check the property and back out of the garage with what feels like full juice, flip it to forward and start out strong and within 30 seconds weaken to a stop. I push it back to the house and plug up the charger.

I have an accusense charge series “smart charger” (picture included). I plug it in to the cart, the detection light flashed 3 times and then kicks off. There’s a small light on the back near the power input of the charger. It’s green when I plug the charger into the wall and after plugging it into the cart and the described action the light next to the power input turns red. I say all this to see if anyone knows if that indicates there is an issue with the charger.

If the charger isn’t the issue my second thought is my bro in law may not have plugged in the charger all the way and when I hopped on it it had not been charged and could the batteries have been “over discharged” to the point where the charger just isn’t recognizing them and therefore not engaging in the charging cycle.

My third possible issue is that I can intermittently turn the key on and hear the solenoid click, if I tap the pedal the cart moves but much like when I rode it and it died out on me, not for long. The solenoid will eventually click again, what I’m assuming is off, and after a few minutes I can start the process over again. I know that “dead” batteries can still have a little residual juice which can be flipping the solenoid but being new to electric carts I didn’t know if this behavior is indicative of some other issue.

Sorry again for the short novel. I would love to hear any thoughts you may have given this info.

[abthompson07]

I’m also new to the message board so if there’s a post directed at this issue please direct me to it.

[Mooncarter]

First thing you have to do is get a voltage meter and find the pack (total) voltage of the batteries.

Did your BIL flip the run/tow switch to "tow."

[abthompson07]

Originally Posted by Mooncarter

First thing you have to do is get a voltage meter and find the pack (total) voltage of the batteries.

Did your BIL flip the run/tow switch to "tow."

Thanks! I’m new to this but had a voltmeter. Touching any combination of posts on the system of batteries yields an 11.6 V reading.

As for the putting it in tow mode, he seems to have the sense for that and I was operating under the assumption he had but I guess if the proof points otherwise... 😂

[Mooncarter]

You need to touch the pack main + and -.

[abthompson07]

Originally Posted by Mooncarter

You need to touch the pack main + and -.

The one combination I didn’t try because they were completely opposite. There’s something to be said about being truly thorough there. Haha. It read 46.4 V

[Mooncarter]

46.4 is dead. Way dead. Less than 10% of a charge.

[abthompson07]

So can I charge each battery individually and hope they aren’t ruined or is there something else I should be doing?

[abthompson07]

And also I’m assuming that’s dead enough for the cart charger to not be recognizing them and kicking into charge mode?

[Mooncarter]

You can do that. I don't know anything about that charger. (What voltage it needs to kick in etc) Perhaps somebody knows about it and will chime in.

You should NEVER run an electric cart down just to see how far it will go.