1987 DS, CF to 3 prong for Lester Summit II

[lwildbeard]

I have a 1987 CC DS that I recently converted from a 36v resistor to a 48v solid state using scottyb’s c54 kit.

I opted to swap the crow foot for the modern 3 pin receptacle as part of the conversion. I have been experiencing issues with the charge cycle. The Lester summit II I have will indicate that the cycle is still in the bulk stage (orange slow blinking light) all the way until 100% and it doesn’t seem to shutoff and switch to green automatically even though it says the charge is 100% on my phone, via Bluetooth. The batteries are brand new Duracell’s. I checked the charger profile setting and it should be the correct one for my battery setup.

3 questions.
1. Even though my cart didn’t have an obd, was there some work around I needed to do with the gray wire at the back of the receptacle to get it to communicate with the Lester charger properly? Currently the gray wire is not connected to anything.
2. Do I need to wire the plug cord in the Lester differently since i am not using the Grey wire? I currently have it wired according to their 3 prong cc schematic.
3. Should I just leave it plugged in longer and the the charger run it’s course? I keep unplugging it because the charger gets hot and last time it said it was 100% and my batteries started bubbling, so I unplugged.

Sorry, I’m a newbie. Any help is appreciated! -Luke

[Fairtax4me]

Make sure you have the correct charge profile selected for the Duracell batteries. It will be the same as Deka or East Penn branded GC8 batteries. The right profile makes a big difference with the modern smart chargers.

Make sure all of your batteries are wired properly - to + and total pack voltage is 48+v.
Make sure your Red and Black wires from the charge receptacle are wired to the Pack Main Positive and Pack Main Negative. Make sure you measure the full pack voltage at the Red an Black wire pins of the receptacle.
The Grey wire is not needed for the S2 to work properly, so you do not need to do anything with that.

[lwildbeard]

Thanks for the advice. Checked the voltage on the series and it tested at 53.6, at which point it was still in the bulk phase. Left the charger running, and in another hour it had entered the absorption phase and was testing at 57.4. It must not have been hitting the voltage thresholds to progress to phase II because the heat from the charger and the bubbling sound in the batteries was scaring me from leaving it plugged in any longer.

Summarized learnings for other beginners:
-chargers are supposed to get hot.
-Lester chargers have minimum thresholds they need to hit before each phase, and they will not give very accurate Bluetooth readings for the first several cycles with new/unfamiliar batteries, as they are learning more about your cart’s battery pack.
-batteries will make bubbling noises toward the end of a charge. Totally normal.
-the correct profile for smart charging is extremely important.