Charger question please help

[bajarebel1]

I am trying to help out my neighbor and he has an ez go 36v cart. recently the amp meter on the front of the charger Powerwise II quit registering and the cart runtime dropped off greatly. I can hear the charger click on when it is plugged in but no reading on amp meter. I replaced the amp meter in the charger and it still doesn't register. can leave charger plugged in and battery pack voltage only gets to about 37.5 volts. does anyone have any idea what would cause amp meter not to work and why run time has fallen off. batteries are only a year old.

Thanks in advance for your input

[JohnnieB]

The fuses are blown, and/or the diodes are bad.

[cgtech]

Dont forget to check capacitor.

[bajarebel1]

thanks for all your help, it appears the capacitor is shorted open. my friend picked up a new one at the golf cart store but they sold him a 4 microfarad cap instead of a 3 microfarad cap which is what I took out of the charger. Will it hurt to use the larger 4 microfarad cap or do I need to get a new 3 microfarad?

[yurtle]

It will affect the charger output, so get the same size as original.

[JohnnieB]

I'm not quite sure about how you determined the capacitor was bad.
The "shorted open" sounds like you used an Ohmmeter and it started as a Short and gradually became an Open, which is the normal reaction when an Ohmmeter is connected to a capacitor.

Here is how to check the transformer and capacitor (they are a matched pair)

[bajarebel1]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the help, the knowledge and willingness to help of the people on this site is amazing. I spoke to tech support at Lestronic and they told me the 4 microfarad capacitor would work just fine so I installed it and the charger is working.

[yurtle]

Kewl.

I figured 4/3 of the original size is a pretty big difference.