2009 Ezgo 36V Motor & Controller Upgrade disappointment

[bbsb1712]

HELP JohnnieB

Went hunting today. Had a great day. Cart seemed to work great. Was headed back to the truck tonight, got to the bottom of the worst ditch on the place (which the cart has been handling fine) and when I stepped on the pedal to start up the solenoid clicked but nothing happened. Tried and tried, forward and reverse, key off and on, put in tow mode and back to run mode. Each time the pedal was pushed the solenoid would click and the cart would barely rock forward and do nothing else.

Luckily my son was able to come get me out and home. Hooked up the laptop and the voltage is 37.9 but when i ran a log and pressed the pedal I got 3 error codes in the log on one line. "Global_Shutdown, Hardware_Overcurrent, and Hi_LThrot_Overange" and nothing else. Solenoid is no longer clicking, nothing.

I have put it in the barn and have it on the charger. I checked and it's a PowerWise Model 28115 G04. I would think by the looks of it, it's an old model.

Honestly have no idea what's going on, but I'm thinking because of your battery comments earlier, could the amps be getting so low, the controller just won't go?

[JohnnieB]

Hopefully the cart was towed with the Run/Tow switch in Tow!!!!!!!!!

Otherwise the motor and/or controller can be taken out, or both.

Did the ditch have water in it? (If the pedal box got wet, that can cause the throttle error.)

A low battery can cause the over-current error. (The motor draws more amps when the battery pack voltage is low)

The PW 28115 charger was designed for Trojan brand batteries and shuts off when the on-charge voltage reaches the 44V to 46V range while US Battery brand batteries requires a minimum finish voltage in the 45V to 47V range. There is an overlap, but the curve of normal distribution indicates about half of the PW 28115 charger's will not adequately charge US Battery brand products.

Bypass the relay in the PW 28115 and let it charge the batteries for about 12 to 16 hours. Then try using the cart.

[bbsb1712]

It was towed in "tow"

There was no water in the ditch or anywhere else.

How do I bypass the relay? If the cart begins working do I need to get a new charger?

[JohnnieB]

unplug the charger from both wall outlet and cart.
Remove case - service manual tells you how.

Find the control board with a black cube on it.
Connect the two wire plugged into the top of cube (relay) together.
Now charger will turn on as soon as it is plugged into an AC wall outlet, so plug it into cart before plugging onto AC power.
With relay bypassed, the charger will stay on as long as it is plugged into AC outlet, so be sure to unplug after charging the batteries for 12 to 16 hours.

Use cart as usual during day and charge for 12 to 16 hours each night for a week or so and the batteries might regain some of their diminished storage capacity caused by the chronic undercharging.

Yes a charger that has a US Battery charging profile is needed.

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Here are a couple images that may help. They are not of a PW 28115, but the relays look the same.

[bbsb1712]

Well now i'm really freaking out. After a full nights charge.....still nothing. No click, nothing.

What should I do first to diagnose? Run logs? Will the controller tell me what's going on? When I hooked up the laptop last night it was showing that the throttle was being pressed 100% so that means the throttle box isn't messed up, Right?? I didn't have time this morning, but I do know last night when I got home the light on the controller was green. I guess I need to turn the run/tow switch off and back on to see the blinking sequence?

What's the chances that the brand new solenoid is out? Are there other diagnostics I can run today without tearing up something?

Brand new motor, controller, and solenoid and i'm back at square one. My wife is going to leave me if i've spent all this money for no reason....LOL

[orangeman6]

I feel your pain, but you’ve got two things going for you. Johnnieb is on your thread, and if you follow him, he’ll get you sorted out for sure. And, if the cart was in tow, chances are you didn’t ruin anything.

Even though it just came off the charger, put your meter on the pack and confirm the voltage so Johnnieb knows where you’re starting.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by bbsb1712

Well now i'm really freaking out. After a full nights charge.....still nothing. No click, nothing.

What should I do first to diagnose? Run logs? Will the controller tell me what's going on? When I hooked up the laptop last night it was showing that the throttle was being pressed 100% so that means the throttle box isn't messed up, Right?? I didn't have time this morning, but I do know last night when I got home the light on the controller was green. I guess I need to turn the run/tow switch off and back on to see the blinking sequence?

What's the chances that the brand new solenoid is out? Are there other diagnostics I can run today without tearing up something?

Brand new motor, controller, and solenoid and i'm back at square one. My wife is going to leave me if i've spent all this money for no reason....LOL

Did the Throttle go from 0% when pedal wasn't pressed smoothly up to 100% as pedal was pressed to the floor?

The XCT is partially powered up when the laptop is connected (+5V from USB) and continuously blinks the code for which throttle type is selected. (4 blinks for EZGO ITS)

Cycling the Run/Tow switch resets the XCT.
Keyswitch turns the XCT on and off.
The error codes repeat until fault is cleared, but only one error code is flashed, whichever is higher in Alltrax's hierarchy of codes.

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Toolkit's monitor screen will show most of the major errors.

Since the solenoid is not clicking, the place to start is measuring the voltage on J1 Pins 4 & 5. Pin-4 is feed by the reed switch in the charge receptacle and Pin-5 is fed by the red wire attached to the solenoid's battery side larger terminal.

The reed switch is a high failure item and many (most?) cart owners by pass it.

The Red wire feeds the beeper as well as Pin-5 on the controller and buried in the wiring harness is something called a sonic weld, splitting the red wire into the two destinations. In their infinite wisdom, EZGO opted to use the weakest part of that connection to feed Pin-5.

If you have full battery pack voltage (38.5V if fully charged) on both Pins 4 & 5, then we'll troubleshoot further.

[bbsb1712]

Thanks JohnnieB. It will be after while but I appreciate the starting point.

More to come!

[bbsb1712]

OK......so this morning no click no nothing. Plugged charger back in.

Came home this afternoon to start from ground zero.

Voltage meter on battery pack = 38.4v
PEN #4 = 38.4v
PEN #5 = 38.4v

Began running a log per your instructions.....key off, direction switch in neutral. Pressed the throttle and SHE TOOK OFF LIKE A ROCKET????

So attached is my log. The first couple are from last night but then the rest are from just now today. I was on flat ground forward and reverse. HOWEVER, about the 3rd time I changed directions.....it clicked and went nowhere. Flipped the direction switch and did the same thing. Flipped the switch again and it took off but it's noticeably slower in my opinion.

Please take a look and see what you can see. I'll be taking the charger apart and bypassing the relay switch as you instructed last night.

Thanks again for all this.

[scottyb]

I do see the motor drawing 350 amps and pulling the pack down to 27 volts which is unacceptably low. You can post the packs at 38 but the bottom line is it is going to 27 under load and that's where you were at in the ditch. Maybe even lower after a full ride and possibly low enough to breech the low voltage cutoff - IDK...
Do you have a in dash volt meter yet? Every cart needs one to avoid these problems.