textron total charger isn't charging

[gregd2]

Hey guys, I'm a newbie and have a question about an old cart charger. It's an older Textron charger that is not putting out any voltage anymore. It was tested at a shop to confirm but I didn't want to pay a $100 diagnostic fee. I connected it to a fully charged 36volt cart and it will only hum. I've opened it up to verify no broken wires or obvious shorts and have ohmed out the obvious stuff. This unit doesn't appear to have a diode or relay on the board. I've got a dvm but not sure how to diagnose whether or not I have a bad board or transformer. It would be nice if I had a spare charger to swap parts with but this is used at my deer lease and there are no other chargers around. Thanks for any advise

[simple man]

Sounds like the diodes are open or the 50A breaker is kicked out. There are two diodes on a heatsink in this charger. There should be a manual you can download for it at: http://bennettgolfcars.ca/ezgo_manuals.php
Parts are quite reasonable and since it hums, I would say the transformer is good.

[Rickochet]

Originally Posted by gregd2

Hey guys, I'm a newbie and have a question about an old cart charger. It's an older Textron charger that is not putting out any voltage anymore. It was tested at a shop to confirm but I didn't want to pay a $100 diagnostic fee. I connected it to a fully charged 36volt cart and it will only hum. I've opened it up to verify no broken wires or obvious shorts and have ohmed out the obvious stuff. This unit doesn't appear to have a diode or relay on the board. I've got a dvm but not sure how to diagnose whether or not I have a bad board or transformer. It would be nice if I had a spare charger to swap parts with but this is used at my deer lease and there are no other chargers around. Thanks for any advise

I don't know a thing about that charger but if it has an automatic cutoff at a certain voltage maybe connecting it to a fully charged pack may not allow it to kick on. Maybe run the cart voltage down some and try it again?

[JohnnieB]

Welcome to BGW.

Find the white wire in the output cable that connects to cart.
Trace white wire back to circuit breaker.
The wire on other side of breaker should be attached to an aluminum plate that is mounted on insulating standoffs.
On the aluminum plate there will be two stud mount or press fit diodes.
The wires attached to those two diodes lead back to the transformer.

The diodes along with what is effectively a center tapped secondary on the transformer, form the full wave rectifier that charges the cart's battery.

Place one Ohmmeter lead on the aluminum plate and the other on either wire leading to transformer. Then reverse leads and measure again.
Should be high Ohms in one polarity and low Ohms in other.
If not, replace both diodes.
1N1184 (35A - 100V) or 1N1188 (35A - 400V) or similar, will work.

The nice thing about those old (and not so old) chargers with the big transformer with big capacitor attached to it, is that every thing is replaceable.

[gregd2]

Diodes aren't open and have a higher value when changing polarity using the diode selector on my meter.

[JohnnieB]

Those Diodes are bad.
You've got 1.8 Megohms in one direction and 2.0 Megohms in the other
Should be something like 10 Ohms (or less) in one direction and 10,000 Ohms (or more) in the other.

Replace them both and that old girl will last another fifty years.

If possible, do me a favor and take more picture from all angles of that charger. I don't have any of that style in my collection.

[kab69440]

Do you need pics of a Total Charge III?

[gregd2]

Just noticed the relay on the board. Not sure how I missed it but it still doesn't appear to have ever had two wires on it due to the looks of the empty terminal. I didn't see any loose wires laying around either.

Here are some more pics:

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by gregd2

Just noticed the relay on the board. Not sure how I missed it but it still doesn't appear to have ever had two wires on it due to the looks of the empty terminal. I didn't see any loose wires laying around either.

Here are some more pics:

Thanks!

Looks like the relay is bypassed. Somebody has turn it into a manual charger, or maybe one that shuts of with a timer.

The way that thing is supposed to work is plug it into AC power and into cart, then set timer to "Start"
Charger (and timer) will automatically shut off when battery pack reaches 44V to 46V range. (That is the normal shut off point for a 36V battery pack)
The timer tells you how long it took to charge the battery pack.
The timer also serves as a safety back-up and shuts down the charger if the batteries don't reach the 44-46V range in 12 hours.

I think I mighty have a wiring diagram for that slightly strange timer/control board arrangement somewhere in my stash, but I'll have to do some searching.


BTW - Those look like Press-fit Diodes. You can just bore a couple of holes in the heatsink and replace them with stud mounted diodes (1N1188 or similar) as shown here.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by kab69440

Do you need pics of a Total Charge III?

If you've got some handy and don't mind me using them when trying to explain where to put test leads.