Converting from 4-12volts to 6-8volts

[trigger1937]

OK,.. I got the message from both of you,..."Don't dump the Acid". I had already headed out for town and I found a friendly station where "Real Mechanic actually work on Saturday". Anyway they wheeled out their large Battery charger and hooked it up for a load test. The Voltage started out at 12.5 volts and they started the load test. The gradually ran it up to 200 Amps and while the voltage dipped as he turned the knob rather quick, the voltage came back but not to 12.5 as he was holding it at 200 amps. He backed off and said as far as he was concerned it was a good battery. Two hours later I sat it up in the garage and the voltage was back to 12.5. Remember, this guy has only had one charge. I tested all of the cells with my Hydrometer and all the readings were in the middle of the white or at the top of the green except one cell which was in the middle of the red. Right now I have it on a 24 hour desulfate run and when I finish that I will put it on an "Equaliztion" run to see if it will balance out the cells.

I have a lot of spare acid left over from other batteries,..enough to replace at least three cells. So I guess the best way to do that is to use my Hydrometer and pull out the acid on the "Brown Cell", and keep doing this until I get it clean. The junk and dirt could be filter out using "Coffee Paper filters" and then reused. It would be a slow process but,...hey,.. in my Retired Life,..what else have I got to do except play with my toys.

[trigger1937]

Ok,..It's been awhile since I added my comments to this post and I have learned a little bit of new informaiton. It should have been obvious,...but it wasn't. My original focus was that the 8 volt units were 150AHr each and so where the 12 Volts,..and 6-8Volt units would yield 900AMPHrs and that 12 Volts would have a total of 600 AMPhrs. However this is wrong since the amp hours do not add up. It all comes down to a single cell which is 2 volts,...and tha AMP Hrs. is the rate of current the CELL will put out. There are 4 cells in the 8 Volt batteries and since there are 6 of them the total # of cells in Series is 24. 24 Cells at 2 volts each = 48 Volts. It all cells are in series, the effective current is limited by the weakes cell in the weakest battery,..and that will limit the max current. The final answer is that it is the TOTAL POWER that is produced while driving the cart. Since both the 8 volt and the 12 volt system end up with 24 Cells it is there 48 volts at 150Amp /HR rating and the systems are equal.

We all should have figured that out since I really couldn't figure out why Club Car would ever go to any system that produced less power. I believe their original motivation was that they felt that 12volt system would eventually cost less for many different reasons,...i.e, less units to fail, less units to build, less maintenance, etc. However it didn't work out and I bet that CC is still trying to figure out why. Anyway, they gave it up and switched back to the 8 volt system because they had too many warranty failures.

So I'm back to square one. There are dozens of people on this web site that are getting great performance out of the 12 volt systems,... and of course there are 100's more that have better experience with the 8 volts system, some lasting 8-10 years. Other very smart people on this web site have summarized it before,...it's all about you usage and the care you give to your cart.