Signs of Bad Voltage Reducer

[Flutie3115]

Hey everyone, I have an 07 Club Car Precedent. I also have a Rhox Volt-2000 voltage reducer. Everything was working fine, then all of a sudden my bluetooth adapter stopped working. I thought it went bad, so I replaced it, the new one didn't work. Then all of a sudden my lights starting being weird. The headlights work fine, but the tail lights don't work, but the brake lights work fine. The high beams don't work at all, and when the high beams are on the brake lights still work, but tail lights don't work still. The hazard flashers work, but because the rear light bulbs are the same the brakes don't work when hazards are on. I do have a 2 amp usb charging port and that works fine too. I tested the wires directly out of the voltage reducer and I am getting 12v. I turned on the lights, high beams, etc and tested a separate wire coming out of the voltage reducer and still getting 12 volts. I replaced the turn signal switch and that didn't fix the problem. Does anyone have any ideas what the problem could be?

[Ryokuro]

Have you checked your batteries? If the voltage is fluctuating while moving, your batteries may just be old and weak and unable to handle the load of moving the cart and powering your accessories.

[Flutie3115]

Yeah, the batteries are actually brand new. This all happens while the cart isn't even moving.

[Flutie3115]

Quick update, I tested with voltmeter the rear lights, right side showed voltage over 12, with exception of one wire which was around 9v. The other side oddly showed voltages over 20volts and one closer to 40volts. Similarly for the high beam connector plug I tested as well.

[MYCART8A4RE]

Voltage reducers get weird in many different ways when failing. Mine made everything cut out when I hit the horn. Since I was waiting on lithium batteries to come in I cut the wires on the reducer and ran my accessors off the batteries temporarily. I put an inline fuse to be safe and everything works perfectly fine that way. You could cut the wires and run it to the batteries to test it. It would be easy to hook back up if the same happened when running off 12-16v from the batts.

[Flutie3115]

I like that idea. Could I connect a battery terminal connector to those wires directly to a single battery positive/negative terminal? If everything works as expected then I assume that means the voltage reducer is bad?

[MYCART8A4RE]

If your batteries are 12v yes, if they are 8v connect the ground wire to the last battery that has the main ground connected to it, then connect the pos to the 5th battery in the series. This will give you 16v and is perfectly safe for just about all 12v accessories. If you have 4 12v batteries be sure to hook to the battery that only has 12v as the voltage raises to 48 as you move up the series connections. If also put a fuse within the positive wire incase your grounding a wire somewhere.

[MYCART8A4RE]

And yes, if your voltage reducer is failing the connections from the battery with everything working fine will tell you for sure.

[Flutie3115]

Determined my voltage reducer is good. I double checked the tail light wiring. Wasn’t getting a reading. So I’m a little closer. Still can’t figure out why the high beams won’t go on, but I can live without that. Now to try and figure out where to back track the tail light wire to. It’s weird that only that wire is down but the wire for the hazards and brakes are good.

[MYCART8A4RE]

That is strange. But since the high beams are out as well its safe to assume that it can't just be the wire to the tail lights, somthing else is going on in there. Only thing I could suggest at this point is double check all the harness connections within the light kit. Pull each one apart and make sure there's no moisture in there and that the connections are nice and tight. Maybe even put a little dielectric grease in there. Maybe one of the connections were not clipped/seated properly and it eventually rattled loose. Beyond that, you would have to wait for the electrical gurus to chime in on this one. Keep us posted on your results.