Charging System Troubleshooting

[jakesnake27]

Hi Mark, welcome to BGW. Go ahead and copy your post into a new thread in the electric CC section, located here: http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/electric-club-car/

You'll get a lot more exposure and better help that way.

[bstaples57]

i have 5 of these carts. I can charge them all using different chargers (it is just one charger that will not charge any of the carts), so I am assuming it is the charger not anything to do with the carts. I opened the charger and have 120 volts on both sides of the circuit breaker, I have jumped across the two black wires - one from circuit breaker, one going to the transformer to bypass the relay, this still does not cause anything to happen, (no hum when plugged in and no movement on the amp meter.
Does anyone have suggestions on where I go from here? Should these chargers work when the relay is bypassed in this manner? Is there a way of checking the rectifier? This one has 2 strips with terminals on them that I am guessing are some kind of diode strips that are the rectifier. Is there a way of checking the transformer?
Thank you in advance for your help.

[bstaples57]

okay please ignore my post -- newby here - I need to learn to navigate the system better!

[Kenny0322]

I haven't tried this yet but I look forward to working on a club car precedent this weekend. A local store owner told me it was going to to cost an average of $800 and mentioned confidentially that I had a bad battery pack which needed to be replaced. I'm just trying to spend the least amount of money but will give this a try! Anything else you would reccomend besides the on board computer and relay? I noticed some corrosion and binding cover battery #1's positive terminal.

[yawood]

If your charger (PowerDrive type, using the OBC) clicks on but shows no amperage on the meter, check your battery wiring first (especially to the positive) before you assume that the charger or OBC is bad.

Lockman1, in his original post about troubleshooting said in the second point of Step 2 "Make sure that the red wire is in good shape and follow it all the way to the MAIN positive battery post. Make sure there is a good connection on the battery and ensure that the wire isn't corroded or broken. If it is, clean it and re-attempt to charge the vehicle."

This is good advice. My charger showed no amperage over a number of attempts such as plugging it in again or cycling the power to the charger. After switching to Tow, I pulled the wires off each terminal, cleaned them thoroughly with a wire brush and covered them with Vaseline as I put them back and checked the tightness of the connection. They were not badly corroded, just showed a little black on the terminal which I cleaned off.

The charger then worked perfectly and has continued to work perfectly.

If this does not fix your problem, then start taking the other troubleshooting advice given in this thread.

[irwinj06]

My battery charge meter does not update on full charge. I have been troubleshooting everywhere for my charging issues and cannot seem to find anything. I have had the charge meter replaced 4 times now with the same issue of not updating upon full charge. I did some research and it appears the meter needs to hit a certain voltage for a minimum number of minutes before it will reset. It was working for a couple of weeks then after I watered the batteries it decided to stop updating again. So I am convinced the issue is either with the batteries or the charger.

I have the new ERIC Charger for Onward carts. The amps out of the charger reaches close to 15 amps during first couple of mins and tapers like it should. However the output voltage is only reaching 56.35 V at the leads on the charger and 55.85 at the batteries. Should the output voltage be higher? Can someone test on their charger and let me know the results.

When the meter was working the ending charge voltage from the charger data port was greater than 57 volts and usually ended around 62.

FYI to pull charger data I used Simple IDAT software from DeltaQ.

Also I do not have an OBC to control the charger.

[ratpack]

I need some help with my cart. It is a 2006 Precedent. We had to put it in storage at the end of May since we were moving. The storage had a 110 outlet, so I plugged the charger in and left it there. Well this weekend, we went to get it out of storage and it is completely dead. Charger won't kick on or anything. It has a radio and even that won't come on, so it is not even getting 12V. I am still unpacking everything, so once I fin my meter, I can check each battery, but I plugged a 12V charger to one of the batteries, but nothing. Where should I start? Also, the 12V charger says trouble when I connect it to each battery, but I am not sure what that means. The cart uses 4 12V batteries so I would hope charging each one would at least get it to do something.

Edited to add that the battery charger I have is like a Battery Tender, so that may be my issue, it isn't beefy enough to handle this job.

[NoleFan4Ever]

Originally Posted by ratpack

-snip-
Edited to add that the battery charger I have is like a Battery Tender, so that may be my issue, it isn't beefy enough to handle this job.

That is correct.

Get a regular 12v charger and charge them 1 at a time till fully charged. May is not that long ago and you should be able to recover them. Then start a new thread in the forum if you still have a problem and we will trouble shoot it out.....

I wonder if your 110v outlet was bad in the storage building.....

[farmerjon]

I have check voltage on each battery when charging, 8 plus volts except one 17 volt on the positive end of the battery series. something wrong with the charger or battery?

[dannyre]

My battery chargers will not shut down after full charge (have tried the original Lester Summit 2 1050 and a brand new Lester Summit two 650, both are on board chargers and connect directly to the battery). Both will show full charge but will not shut of and overboil the batteries. My OBC is still intact, but I believe it is not necessary for the Summit two's to shut down, at least it has been no problem for two years. I am starting to think that it is a battery issue, but all of the batteries test between 8.1 and 8.3 with a voltmeter when fully charged. Your thoughts...

Thanks

Danny