96 club car ds bad OBC or Solonoid?

[dszklarek]

Need of help- looooong time lurker and reader. Feel like best friends with some like Scotty! I believe I have a bad obc, but dont want to buy the smart charger until I know for sure. Only reason I am not sure is cart suddenly stopped while running and I have read obc doesnt cause that. Went to plug it in and charger would not come on.

All batts and wires are good. When I bypass obc with wire from receptacle to negative, charger turns on. When I run wire from solenoid yellow to battery, cart runs. Cart has acted weird for months with reverse not sounding, cutting out from time to time until I switch back and forth f/r, but always ran strong.

Again, I would buy the charger and be done with obc, but now am wondering if I am bypassing solenoid and not just obc because a bad obc should not cause fully charged cart to stop running?

serial number- A9541-466896

Any help please, my eyes are bleeding from thread lurking.

[usgicollector]

First remove both your main negative and positive wires from your battery pack. wait 10 minutes or so and see if this reset your obc. Your obc just might be locked up.

[dszklarek]

Sorry, I should have added I did go through the reset steps twice and no change.

obc only controls the charging


solenoid test

Disconnect the negative battery cable from the battery. remove all wires, restorer , and diode from solenoid
test 1
Connect an volt meter, set on continuity, place on the two large terminal studs. The meter should indicate no continuity, Replace the solenoid if continuity is present.
test 2
Using jumper wires attach from main positive and main negative of battery pack to the two small solenoid studs, polarity is not important. You should hear a click as the solenoid engages, and the meter should indicate continuity on the two large terminals. Replace the solenoid if continuity is not present.
if solenoid clicks rapidly solenoid is bad

You Tube

You Tube

if good then f/r switch is next

[dszklarek]

Started raining terribly here, but will check solenoid as soon as possible. New development though.

Just drove it for 9 holes with jumper from solenoid to negative and drove great. Plugged it into charger and now charger will not come on after charger coming on perfect right after bypassing obc. Also, the cart will drive with charger plugged in. Can a solenoid cause these issues? If not, how can an obc cause cart to suddenly stop while driving.

After checking solenoid, I am thinking of having cart shop pick it up rather than buying charger without knowing for sure. Only problem is our cart shop here in South Bend In is just terrible.

[Sergio]

The OBC can cause all of the issues You are talking about.

The OBC provides the negative to the Solenoid on a Series cart, so if it is malfunctioning, the cart can stop at any time.

As long as the cart is driving fine with that by-pass in place (solenoid small gauge yellow wire directly to Pack Negative), there is no other issue.

I would just completely by-pass the OBC (there is a sticky about it) and just buy the smart charger.

[CCFanatic]

I think that the issue here is the OBC itself. There are separate circuits inside of it, and it controls both the charging and the run-ability of the car. Sounds like a total OBC failure rather than just one part of it

[dszklarek]

Just jumped the charger receptacle to the negative battery and charger comes on but needle shows no amps- batteries have to need charge after running for 9 holes.

I may have been confused remembering charger coming on just from jumping solenoid to battery, maybe it was just when going from receptacle to battery? Would that make more sense?

Thanks so much for the help- crazy how confusing this can be to a newbie and even more frustrating.

[Sergio]

The meter on a charger should always jump to max regardless of how much the cart was used.

If You are just by-passing the grey sense wire from the charger receptacle, that will not work if the OBC has completely failed.

You also have to run the negative 10ga wire from the charger receptacle directly to pack negative.

[dszklarek]

Hi Sergio, I have read a lot of your posts, thank you for the thought.

I have one lead wire going from solenoid to last negative pack terminal and one wire from the fused wire off receptacle going to same terminal. Charger comes on, but needle does not move. Cart drives normal and batteries show charged.

Is that how it should be?