no power uphill

[arnot]

just purchased a 2001 Club Car, 48 V with 6 x 2 ½ year-old Trojan batteries. Each battery tests at 8.4V, pack voltage = 50.2V. Runs fine on flat surfaces, with pack voltage ~40-42V, slight incline causes drop to 35V and steep incline (~15º) causes drop to ~27V and cart comes to a stop.

I'm not at all interested in speed, but have requirement to go up and down my steeply-hilled property regularly. From experienced carters, what are suggested improvements to allow climbing my hill - new batteries? new motor/controller? sell the Club Car on and revert to my old F150? (the whole point of the purchase was to allow going up and down the hill to my workshop at night - and doing it quietly, with an electric motor). Suggestions and input greatly appreciated. Aloha!

[S-N-R Customs]

I’m sure the experts will chime in here... I can’t believe how much voltage drop you’re getting under a load... I off-road with mine and only see about .5 volt drop on massive climbs. I’ll take a couple guesses, but they’re just guesses...

Are the batteries low on water, or maybe they were not taken care of properly before you got the cart.

Clean all connections. Under load from things like hills, there is massive amp draw and dirty connections reduce the amount of amp output.


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[arnot]

thanks for your input, but connections not the issue - removed all battery cables and cleaned them & posts with wire wheel/brush.

of possible note (tho' they're the size that came with the cart when new, I believe), the battery to battery cables are, I believe, 6 gauge; i read in the forums re upgrading to 2 gauge, but thot that was mostly if upgrading motor and controller, too. Could the cables be cause of such a tremendous power loss?

i'm willing to spend what it takes to make this work...or accept it won't and abandon the effort; just don't want to put out bucks in pursuit of wrong correction.

thanks to any and all for input! Aloha!

[rib33024]

How steep is this hill? Pictures. The cables you have are 19 years old. First thing to do is, Charge the battery pack to full charge. Take your volt meter and check the batteries volts. Now hook the volt meter to the battery pack + - and drive the cart up the hill a little and see what the volts drop to. Then repeat that on each battery and you will see how good your batteries are. Sounds like you have a bad battery or two.

Is this cart lifted with big tires?

How far up the hill do you drive the cart? Feet/miles

How long did the car sit not charged before you got the cart?

Was the water low in the batteries when you checked it?


A stock cart was not made to go up steep hills.

[scottyb]

Aloha, arnot. Uhm... amtoo
I guarantee it will need a 500 amp speed controller, 400 amp solenoid, and a 2g cable set at the minimum. Better if it also had a HD F&R switch and an Admiral 10 hp A1 motor. This would serve the cart well in the sometimes steep island terrain assuming good batteries.

[WalterM6]

Look at the connections on top of the batteries. There should be a Letter and a numbered stamped into the post. This indicates the month and year of manufacture. Some people are not completely truthful about the age of batteries. What has yours got on them? In any case your batteries are shot and need replacing.

[Fairtax4me]

You have at least one dead battery. Probably need to replace them all. Check each battery individually while driving.
At 2-1/2 years old, if someone was mistreating them before that’s plenty of time for them to be toast at this point.

Driving on flat ground a good battery pack will not drop below 48v even After running for 10-15 miles. Going up-hill you should still be seeing over 45v. The fact it drops below 45 on flat ground says enough to say you need batteries.
Getting into the mid 30 volt range on hills guarantees they are shot.

[arnot]

thanks to all for input:

- the cart is not lifted; stock tires

- the road uphill is 1100 ft total, ~600 ft of it steep, measured (with 4ft level & protractor) at maximally ~15 degrees (and that's the point where it gives out - on the more gradual slope up to that point it's slow but OK)

- the battery dates are stamped with Feb 2017, as noted ~2½ yrs old; each battery tests, without load, at 8.4V; will run individual load tests on weekend; battery water is correct level, but I am unsure how long cart sat b/4 purchase

- Fairtax4me's comments that the voltage drop when even just riding on level land suggests bad batteries seems very telling....that's a big expense; perhaps they'll be adequate for the garage solar system....

[Nick Wondka]

Hi, did you ever figure out the problem? I just acquired a Yamaha 48V car with the exact same problem. 2.5YO batteries, goes good on flat or downhill, slows and cuts out on hills. Thinking of upgrading to lithium, but don't want to spend the bucks if it is a motor or something else.

[Jeansman]

I would do a load test on each battery, disconnected from the chain. You may have a battery not up to snuff, first.