New 60l cart owner, battery charge seems short

[ethanrwhitney]

Purchased a new 60l from the dealer two weeks ago. Cart was fully charged from dealer the first night we put about 17 miles on it and meter read 46 percent when being plugged in for the night. Cart was not charged properly and driven down to 26 percent. Now the cart will only get about 7-8 miles and be at 50% charge. Other than the long drain and improper charge the only thing that has changed is a sound bar was installed. Which is not run through a reducer but hooked to the two batteries giving off 12v directed by dealer. I may be wrong but it doesn't seem like the sound bar would affect range so much. I know hooked this way it will cause uneven discharge over time and more strain on those 2 batteries. Any help or tips provided would be awesome

[derelicte]

Disconnect the sound bar and see if the range improves.

You could also have a bad battery.

[__JAG__]

Do not go off of %, the meters are horribly inaccurate and come from the factory with the low voltage way below where you should take it. Go by voltage. Full charge should be 52v, I consider 0% at 48v at a standstill. You start going lower and you will damage your batteries and their remaining life. Sounds like they were over discharged and were damaged.

If you run it until it slows down, you are doing damage to the batteries.

[ethanrwhitney]

Originally Posted by __JAG__

Do not go off of %, the meters are horribly inaccurate and come from the factory with the low voltage way below where you should take it. Go by voltage. Full charge should be 52v, I consider 0% at 48v at a standstill. You start going lower and you will damage your batteries and their remaining life. Sounds like they were over discharged and were damaged.

If you run it until it slows down, you are doing damage to the batteries.

So far I haven't seen a reduction in speed due to charge or voltage, I have seen the voltage down to 46 while running the cart. Today I disconnected the speaker and ran the cart about 15 miles and was around 66% charge. I didn't notice the volts. Is there an easy way to tie the speaker into the onboard reducer? It seems like disconnecting it made a difference

[__JAG__]

Speaker should be a minimal draw compared the cart motor. I have one and have seen no difference in longevity of the charge.

If it was not wired into the onboard reducer, how was it wired? Was it always powered on? That could cause a draw all the time and bring down the charge overnight.

[ethanrwhitney]

Originally Posted by __JAG__

Speaker should be a minimal draw compared the cart motor. I have one and have seen no difference in longevity of the charge.

If it was not wired into the onboard reducer, how was it wired? Was it always powered on? That could cause a draw all the time and bring down the charge overnight.

It is wired to separate batteries to get the 12 volts. It is always on unless the fuse is pulled, but it is also charging when we are not driving it.

[derelicte]

That is a dumb way to wire that. I wouldn't go back to that dealer.

[ethanrwhitney]

Originally Posted by derelicte

That is a dumb way to wire that. I wouldn't go back to that dealer.

so what would be the best way to wire it? it has a 48v to 12v reducer in it already correct? where is the reducer located? not sure where i would plug it in and if need a specific pigtail or can just connect the wires

[mrmotoguzzi00]

Ethan, Using only 2 batteries for the speaker will discharge those 2 batteries quicker than the others. This means the batteries are not at the same level of charge anymore. Or not in sync.

1) disconnect that speaker and wire it to the 12v reducer if you have one.

2) ya may need to get a standalone charger to charge all the batteries individually so they are all at the same charge level, then you can go back to charging them as a pack.


If 1 battery is not charging up to the same level it may be bad...

Keep us updated...

[derelicte]

It should be wired to the dc to dc converter.

You can try charging and discharging the batteries a few times to see if the voltage on each battery evens out. Otherwise you'll have to separate the batteries and charge them individually like memotoguzzi suggested.

I'd try the easy way first.