Cart Shutters under full load

[ferbm]

Thanks for all the leads guys,

The charger is a 48v charger (not sure of brand, will check when I get home), but it came with the cart.

I do tend to plug the charger in and let it go for a day without checking in on it. Is this a bad habit?

As far as the volt meter is concerned, it's been reliable in the past, but that dosent mean that it's not going to crap now too. I will try and replace it's battery and re-read tonight. It's just a POS unit from WM or Menards...

[shadowman]

always try and take a peek at batteries while charging...............dosn,t hurt......................................

[ferbm]

Udate:

The battery in my voltmeter was nearly dead, giving false readings!!!

I changed that battery, then re-read the cart's batteries.. So lets do this just one more time.

In order: 7.55, 7.55, 7.70, 7.54, 7.44, 7.51. Across the pack is 45.2.

Ive read elsewhere on this site that if the batteries are too low, the charger will not cycle on. Is there a way that I can get the batteries started enough to charge, or can I change something with the charger to allow it to switch on?

The charger is a Club Car "Power Drive" model with a date of 04/98 indicated on the back.

[shadowman]

you can open the charger and take the top wire i beleive but its the real small black wire (about 2 inches long from circuit breaker to relay) off the circuit breaker and put a peice of black tape on end so it dosn,t touch anything........than take the transformer wire out of the relay its a tan wire and the relay is where the other end of the wire you just disconnected goes into.......take that tan wire and plug it into the circuit breaker where you just puled the black wire off from.........that bypasses the low voltage sensor and the cart will charge normal but won,t shut off...................charge like that for 5 to 6 hours and than redo charger back to normal and put cover back on, plug charger in and let it finish charging till charger shuts off...........after that take voltage readings from each battery and if they are still like 6.1 to 6.3 or so i would drop a new set in there and break them in right and be done with it except for battery maintence..................if you bypass L.V.S. in charger make sure that little black wire ( about 2 inches long) dosn,t touch anything thats why i tape it up...............if you don,t want to go that route you can charge each battery with an automobile charger just don,t leave it out of your sight while charging it that way........its a lot faster to bypass charger and if you have a manual they give you the step by step on how and what to do.......................good luck and be careful....................................

[ferbm]

Thanks Tom!

I will try that this weekend! If that dosent work, looks like im out some big $$$ for a set of new batteries....

[ferbm]

Quick question. If I do this and plug in the charger, should the ampmeter on the charger register something?

It's on and making a humming noize, but the ampmeter on the charger is reading zero.

[ferbm]

Man this is getting frustrating!

I bypassed the low volage sensor and nothing happened.

The neighbor happens to have the same cart, so I grabbed his charger, which we know works on his cart, and nothing on mine!

Is there a circuit on the cart that I should check to make sure the cart will take a charge? I see one red cable goes directly to the battery pack and the other grey wire goes into the speed controller, then another wire out through the computer and back into the battery pack... Everything looks tight, is there a way to check to see if things are working?

Arrrrrggggggg.....

[OLD MEC]

Have You Tried Taking The Charger ( Plug In On Cart ) Apart And Checked It For Loose Internal Connections And Or Corossion. Also Remember There Is An ( Inline Fuse Between Plug In Connection And Battery Pack ) And That Should Be Checked. In My Area The Contacts Get Bad From The Salt Air We Have Found That Many Problems Were Caused By Salt. The Charger Lead Even Tilts Down So Moisture Can Pocket At Bottom Of Connection On Club Car?

[ferbm]

Both are good!

The plug is clean, and the fuse looks good (I made a jumper just to be sure ).

[ferbm]

Ok, so I read the post about: Club Car 48V Charging System

That suggested two ways to bypass the low voltage sensor. I had already tried the "at the charger" solution. So I tried the grey wire bypass method, and that didnt work either.

Both methods allowed the charger to "click" on at the relay, so I know that the bypasses were doing their jobs, but still no charge!

My final attempt was to bypass the computer all together and run a wire from the black wire coming out of the fuse connected to the cart's charging plug to the negative battery pack terminal.... IT WORKED! The pack is charging away as we speak!

I wonder if this was needed because the charge was low, or is it really that the computer is junk.

Thanks all.
Matt.