Pros & Cons on Neg Cable With OBC

[Swan]

I was helping a friend out today and he has his CC DS done up motor , controller and so on. I happened to notice that is neg cable doesn't go though the OBC and I said it to him hey look at this.. His answer was that when he went with 4 gauge 4 years ago it didn't fit though it so he just ran around the end of that divider. he said its no big deal he never had a problem and didn't care about changing it .

Now I was always under the impression that it had to run though it . Is it that big of a deal ????

[Fishing Dude]

Did he put a timer on his charger, bypass his relay, to get his charger to work? He could run a different charger also. He could use a smaller wire through his OBC to get it to work.

[Swan]

nothing was running though the OBC and he uses a standard power drive 2 CC charger

[basshawk84]

My cart was that way for a couple of years and it worked fine. Every once in a while the charger would fail to come on after plugging it in. I would flip the run tow switch a couple of times and it would turn on and charge just fine. I don't think it was supposed to work but it did.

[gumpbuck]

I had same issue with my cables. Someone on this site told me to leave the old neg cable in place and run the new (4ga) cable around the OBC. So both neg cable are installed. Been that way for a couple of weeks and no issues. Not sure why I was told this. But I do know I did not want to cut the new Neg cable and crimp a new terminal on it, after running it through the OBC. It would have been very tight anyway...
Don't know if this helps or not. Curious about what others have to say about this....

[Culln5]

I upgraded my cables this year and did not run through the OBC. I immediately had charging issues and thought my batteries were toast. Did some research on this fine site and built a stud.... Woahla, charging worked fine.

George

[scottyb]

Not all OBC are the same early generations simply monitored voltage and turned the charger on and off.
Several versions later they now monitor amperage draw and determine how much recharge your batteries need.

[sunoco]

Originally Posted by scottyb

Not all OBC are the same early generations simply monitored voltage and turned the charger on and off.
Several versions later they now monitor amperage draw and determine how much recharge your batteries need.

I just had a guy bring a cart in who did this. His charger wouldn't come on at all. He thought the charger was bad. I removed his cable and made a new one to go through the obc since he cut it out. 15 mins and he's back in business

[jedotx]

Originally Posted by gumpbuck

I had same issue with my cables. Someone on this site told me to leave the old neg cable in place and run the new (4ga) cable around the OBC. So both neg cable are installed. Been that way for a couple of weeks and no issues. Not sure why I was told this. But I do know I did not want to cut the new Neg cable and crimp a new terminal on it, after running it through the OBC. It would have been very tight anyway...
Don't know if this helps or not. Curious about what others have to say about this....

Thats what I did when I went to 2gauge cables. left the original cable going through the OBC and ran the 2gauge around so both cables are connected to the appropriate battery terminal and both are connected to the appropriate terminal on controller. It has been that way for almost 3 years and never been a problem.
Another alternative is there are some threads on here that detail a way to run a stud throught he OBC with threaded ends on each side for connecting cables. I beleive ScottyB offers a kit to achieve this. The only down side I see to that method is that you need an additionsl short length of cable to go from back of stud to the controller.
I personally would not go with no cable through the OBC if I were using the stock Clubcar charger. Batteries are to expensive to risk damage from improperly charging