2017 Drive 2 - ongoing issue/need help

[jayhrc51]

Need some help on this one - I have a golf cart that is burning up motors and I need to know why.

Bought a 2017 48v Drive 2 fleet cart from a dealer on 6/15/20. A few weeks later I added a rear seat, a complete Madjax LED headlight/taillight kit, wheels with 215/50 12’s. Wanted a little more speed so I decided to upgrade the controller after asking for some input here. The controller is an Alltrax XCT400 with a 200a solenoid using a field map provided by the supplier.

That got me speed but I was still using the Hitachi factory motor and I knew it was living on borrowed time with the extra speed. After driving with this setup for a while the Trojan batteries were acting a little weak and didn’t seem like they were holding a charge like they should so I upgraded to new T875’s, about 13 months ago. A few months after replacing the batteries, the factory Hitachi motor died and I needed a replacement. After getting new batteries…I never had an issue while running the old and potentially tired batteries.

On Janury 7th of this year I bought an Admiral D2 as a replacement. Got a new field map from the supplier that is supposed to be built for my combination of controller/motor. Also added 2ga wire kit sometime around here. Everything was going great for several months and then in June of this year my kid came home from the store and cart was driving slow and the motor stunk. It was really hot so we trailered it the 1 mile home.

Tried to capture data from the controller but files weren’t saving correctly on my computer for some reason and due to the motor getting hot really fast I couldn’t get much long run data. After some back and forth the motor ended up getting replaced under warranty, which was great. New replacement Admiral D2 motor was installed on Aug 14th and I took it for a short ride and the motor was getting hot, about 190F when I got home. I drove it again the next day and pulled data and I was told that my batteries were sagging under load and my amp draw was really high, causing the motor to get hot. Makes sense. I’m not sure why other people aren’t burning up motors when their batteries get old, that seems strange to me. It’s even stranger that my factory motor burned up after getting new batteries.

Since I was told that my batteries were sagging under load I took them to the Trojan dealer and they tested them, said they are fine. I’m getting conflicting info and I didn’t want to deal with an argument about batteries being fine or not. I just want a working golf cart…so I talked myself into a lithium upgrade since I figured that would solve my problems and I didn’t really want to deal with the lead acid batteries if I could upgrade to something better and save a bunch of weight and enjoy the other lithium benefits. I have a friend that said he would buy my Trojan’s (knowing about the potential risk) so I sold them for a few hundred bucks. Today I purchased an Eco Battery 48v 105ah bundle from a local dealer and got it installed this evening. Figured that would solve all my issues and be done with anything battery or motor related for a long time.

I just went for a 2 mile shakedown test drive to see if everything is working. Motor was making a faint clicking noise while moving forward or reverse. Not happy about that…New lithium battery was charged to 80% when I left. After 2 miles the battery was down to 60%. Motor was hot yet again, up to 190F. Wires from the controller to the motor were also hot.

I need some help getting this figured out. The supplier that I bought the controller and motor from has been extremely helpful with reviewing data, getting a warranty claim approved for a motor. I have no issue with the supplier at all, but it’s time for me to start pulling in additional support to try and get this resolved. I haven’t had a working golf cart for several months this year. I’m like 4 grand deep on motors and batteries and I can’t deal with it anymore. I need to get this sorted so that I can use my golf cart.

What can I do to resolve this issue of motors getting overly hot? I was told the pack was at fault so I bought the best option available. I didn’t pull any data tonight because it was literally just a quick ride around the neighborhood to see if it was driving alright.

Based on the above info, what’s the weak link in this system causing motors to get hot? I’ve eliminated the potential battery concern. Could it be controller related?

I live in Northwest FL a few blocks from the Gulf…so I don’t have anything that resembles a hill near me. Cart only drives on paved roads. It’s not lifted and isn’t riding on huge tires. Tire pressure is running at the recommended fill level. Other than the headlight kit and two small LED spot lights, nothing else is connected to the pack. These symptoms occur even when all lights are off during the day.

I’m grateful for any help anyone can provide.

[Cartmaster]

It might be worth doing some resistance tests on all your cables, you may have one that is dropping the voltage down with high resistance which would raise the Amps being drawn. Remember, the motor demands the amps, the controller only passes what the motor calls for, so unlikely to be an issue with the controller.

[ojo]

Oh man, what a impressive story i wished i could help, but can't. Real headscratcher!

[jayhrc51]

Originally Posted by Cartmaster

It might be worth doing some resistance tests on all your cables, you may have one that is dropping the voltage down with high resistance which would raise the Amps being drawn. Remember, the motor demands the amps, the controller only passes what the motor calls for, so unlikely to be an issue with the controller.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll pull the cables and check them today.

After I check cable resistance, if they check out fine, I'm going to try and do another quick test drive so that I can get some data after installing the new lithium battery pack.

This similar situation has now happened with my Trojan lead acid batteries and the lithium pack, which uses even fewer cables since it's only one battery and not 6, so it shouldn't be hard to pull and check them. Original Hitachi motor burned up while using the factory battery and motor cables.

[jayhrc51]

Originally Posted by ojo

Oh man, what a impressive story i wished i could help, but can't. Real headscratcher!

Thank you. It is definitely a frustrating situation. I mean, all the key components are new and what I would consider high quality. I don't feel like I tried to go the cheap route with any of my parts. This system is relatively small (battery, solenoid, controller, wires and motor) so I don't know what else to be causing motors to get hot. I've even reviewed all of the Alltrax controller settings and the field map with the supplier to ensure those are setup correctly and they are.

[Cartmaster]

Can you use the controller software to do live data of current draw?

[jayhrc51]

Originally Posted by Cartmaster

Can you use the controller software to do live data of current draw?

Yeah, it shows that info.

Everyone has been telling me it's highly unlikely that the controller is the issue but I'm running out of parts that are possibly causing my issue. So I called Alltrax yesterday afternoon and gave them a rundown of what's been going on and we did some over the phone troubleshooting. They asked me to send the controller to them for testing. So it'll be over a week before I get any more info from Alltrax.

The only other part in the system is the solenoid so I'm going to preemptively order a new one so that I have it here while I'm waiting for Alltrax to test my controller.

[jayhrc51]

Little bit of an update here. Alltrax has had my controller for 2 weeks and they were unable to replicate my issue. Bench tested and tested in a cart to try and get a factory motor hot. They couldn't. So, the controller seems to be fine. They are going to send a new controller just to eliminate even the possibility of the controller being the issue. Amazing customer service and they went above and beyond my expectations at every turn.

Aside from the Alltrax update, I think I may have gotten to the bottom of the issue but I don't have confirmation just yet. So I'll update again once I'm 100% that it's resolved. And that may take another couple weeks

[jayhrc51]

Well, it seems that my issues have finally been resolved. Turns out that my brand new warranty replacement motor burned up during the break in process. I was able to get another warranty replacement and now that it's been installed, everything seems to be working fine.

While I was dealing with non-working cart for my entire summer (literally June to November), I did spend some time rebuilding the stereo in order to take advantage of all the free space in the battery compartment. I'll share those pictures in another post specific to the stereo updates in case anyone is interested in that.

[doug527]

Aftermarket controllers seem to cause more problems than not. I Have a 2021 Drive2, Trojans AGM. Love it other than limited to 20mph