48Volt club car batteries not charging

[Spitz]

Batteries testing at 47.5 Volt, no load. Club car driving ok, forward and reverse.
Charger plugged into AC not humming if plugged into cart or not.
Yellow light on intermittently after each drive.
Charger humming and puts out 55.9 Volts at the plug, when relay "jumped" in the charger. However, the batteries are not taking a charge, no change in Voltage after 2 hours, the ammeter did not move at any time. It tests continuity ok.
Contacting Lester in Nebraska who returned my call, which I am most grateful for, they say transformer is gone, because the secondary coil does not read 85 Volts or higher, which is agreeing with the manual. My reading was 55Volt.
A technician in Toronto told me to check the wires to the batteries, all connectors, plugs, receptacle.
The black (-) lead from the receptacle goes to the controller then to the OBC, then going to the battery bank.
What can I check next?

[scottyb]

I don't know what year cart you are asking about but the route you said the charge went may not be right. Did it work before like this? When did the problem start? Have you checked out put on the back side of receptacle? 55v is enough. 85v into a 48v pack is crazy. Negative should go to the battery main - and the Positive to the main +.

[Spitz]

This is a 2002 model.
Thanks for suggestion, I will test voltage at the backside of receptacle.
The 85Volt could be a typo in the manual, the guy at Lester may also not have paid exact attention to the secondary coil voltage number (85). The rectifier does not change voltage, so the DC voltage should be the same as the coil (AC) voltage, right?
Yes, it worked like that before, the negative going to the controller first before it goes to the battery. Positive goes directly from plug receptacle to +side of battery bank.

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by Spitz

This is a 2002 model.
Thanks for suggestion, I will test voltage at the backside of receptacle.
The 85Volt could be a typo in the manual, the guy at Lester may also not have paid exact attention to the secondary coil voltage number (85). The rectifier does not change voltage, so the DC voltage should be the same as the coil (AC) voltage, right?
Yes, it worked like that before, the negative going to the controller first before it goes to the battery. Positive goes directly from plug receptacle to +side of battery bank.

That will work, just one or the other end of the same cable...... sounds like you do not have a positive connection then? Is the big fuse good on the back side of the receptacle?

[shadowman]

can you try the charger on another cart? its possible its not a charger problem.........................................

[Spitz]

Checked all connections again. yes, fuse is good at cart and in charger. All wires from charger check on continuity through plug and receptacle of cart.Voltage at charger is now at only 50Volts (cannot explain discrepancy in readings), that seems a bit on the low side, but I guess is ok. Lester in Nebraska says voltage is way too low, technician here in Canada claims it is ok. Not reading anything on flow on ammeter when jumping the relay.
Battery voltage same at charger and battery, with battery disconnected from the controller. So Voltage seems to reach battery.
Batteries are not taking any charge though. in any case, tested voltage after 30 minutes, no difference on battery bank. The bank is down to 46 Volt now.
Can I jump the OBC by using a jumper from the black lead of the plug receptacle (which is fused) directly to Battery? The red cable goes directly to battery. To see if the charger is doing anything?

[shadowman]

you should be able to bypass using grey wire with yellow fuse holder.......disconnect at fuse and run jumper from there.......all you really need to do is try the charger on another cart if it works replace your OBC....................................

[Spitz]

Far away from another cart. Only one around. I will try your other suggestion. thanks so much.

[Spitz]

Ok, time for an update. Thanks to everyone's suggestions, I have tested the basic stuff again.
I was ready to jump the OBS, but thought lets take some basic readings, again.
46 Volts at Battery bank, no load. 49 Volts output from charger, just could not get it to charge batteries. Still not sure why not. However, today the charger ammeter jumped to 15 amps as soon as I jumped the relay. Strange, it had not done so before. Batteries full before? Battery voltage according to my VOM was not too high or too low for the charger not to come on.
I looked into the little relay in the charger. There was 48.5 Volt right at the coil of the relay but it was not closing the AC circuit. AHA, so I will change that. Ordered a new one online.
I do not understand why the charger would not charge the batteries before, even though I was reading 49Volt from the charger at the batteries (relay jumped at that point). (battery bank disconnected so the reading would be just the charging Voltage from charger). Bad connection? Just not getting the amperage across the bank?
Hmm.

1. Relay was kaputt, will replace.
2. Check all connections again.
3. Have a hunch that a cheap VOM does not read DC voltages accurately.
Any thoughts?

[shadowman]

althought it dosn,t happen alot the relays do go bad and its cheaper than replacing anything else......all you can do is try as for your meter while i use them these guys will tell you i don,t hesitate to try old school if i don,t beleive the meter as they are wrong more than you think.............................