48V Charger issue

[daven8844x]

Hello, I have a Lestronic 48V charger on a 2000 DS Series cart. Cart had been sitting for a long time with new batteries that were pretty dead. I had to charge them individually, and finally got to a point where the Lestronic would charge. The charger, however, starts and hums, the ammeter kicks up to 20a, and it stays there for a few seconds, then it goes to zero for a second (still humming, but not the load-sounding buzzing when at 20a), then back to 20a for a few seconds, and so on.

Not sure what is going on. I did cut the cord back and reinstalled the plug to potentially eliminate possible loose connection in the plug wire, although it does not seem to make a difference if I move the plug wire around...it just seems to cut to 0 and back to 20 at will. The charger body was getting hot, and I thought I started smelling slight melting.

Also, when I took apart the plug, it is only two wire and three prong. The positive and negative are connected properly. Then the auxiliary prong is connected to the negative prong with some sort of electrical piece in the middle (a capacitor?...sorry for my basic electronics ignorance). Does that sound normal? Any thoughts as to this issue. This all worked fine at one time years ago, but has been sitting for probably 5 years unused.

Thanks in advance!

[Mooncarter]

I'm not familiar with what you have, but I'm pretty sure the neg. should go directly to the charging port neg. Others should chime in soon.

[WalterM6]

Setting five years w/o any attention make me think the batteries are shot. With the different climate changes they may have even froze. Measure the individual and total battery voltages. But at this time I think you need new batteries.

[NoleFan4Ever]

Originally Posted by daven8844x

-snip-
The positive and negative are connected properly. Then the auxiliary prong is connected to the negative prong with some sort of electrical piece in the middle (a capacitor?...sorry for my basic electronics ignorance). Does that sound normal? Any thoughts as to this issue.

That is wired correctly for an OBC cart. That is your sense wire feed....

[daven8844x]

Originally Posted by WalterM6

Setting five years w/o any attention make me think the batteries are shot. With the different climate changes they may have even froze. Measure the individual and total battery voltages. But at this time I think you need new batteries.

I am prepared for that being an issue, but would it manifest itself in this way? I did leave it plugged in, and it charged up pretty nicely. I drove around and put it back on the charger, but stopped and tried to diagnose this charger behavior. Just checked the batteries, and all are at 7.5v (again, after I drove it around for a bit), but this charger behavior is concerning.

FWIW, I live in a mild climate area and it was garage kept. Batteries still had adequate water.