2003 DS OEM Voltage Reducer Questions

[Lochlin]

Hello all,

My "thing" on BGW is almost exclusively with vintage carts but I do have a "new" one which is a 2003 DS. This was a Pathway model that has factory lights on it. The voltage reducer has apparently wet the bed as it is draining the battery pack when the cart isn't is use. How do I know this? When I disconnect the reducer the cart holds a charge just fine. When the reducer is connected the pack drains fairly quickly.

I have replacement reducer that I want to install. It is like all of the others I have installed in that there are two 48v feeds going into it, and two 12v lines coming out of the other side. Here is the question: The OEM reducer has three lines on one side. My volt meter crapped out in the middle of testing so I wasn't able to tell what is what with those three lines.

Can anyone help out with what the three lines are all about and how to drop them down to two? I would happily replace with an OEM reducer but I can't find any anywhere.

Thanks in advance.

[Lochlin]

A bit of follow up should someone else come across this odd voltage reducer. There are three incoming wires, white, red and black. The white and red are both 48v powered on with the key switch and the black is ground. There are two wires existing the reducer, yellow and blue. The yellow is 12v and the blue is ground. These power the 12v accessories.

With regard to wiring, I used the incoming red wire for the new voltage reducer and left the white as-is. It could have easily been the other way around, though. All is good with this cart now.

I have no idea why Pathways have 2 key powered feed going into it but I am guessing it's because that these carts had a ton of OEM options with them: windshield wipers, turn signals, windshield defroster, etc. The old volrage reducer is 30 amp which is larger than most. Engineers may have saw a need for excessive draw hence the need for a 2nd wire in lieu of putting a beefier one in.

[Fairtax4me]

Generally a reducer with two input wires, 1 is a main power wire and the other is an on/off signal wire. The main power goes to the pack, the signal wire goes to the switched side of the key. I've never seen one where both wires were connected to the key, but I'm sure someone has hooked them up that way. The downside to that is the reducer is then pulling its full current draw through the key switch, which can eventually lead to the switch being damaged.

[Lochlin]

Yeah, that's why this one has me stumped. For sure, everything about this set up is / was OEM. The wiring connectors all matched, the wiring colors all matched. You may know this but the Pathway trim had fully street legal trim in Nevada. Seat belts, real roll bar, diffused headlights, defroster, 4 wheel brakes and some other goodies. I can't make heads or tails of the 3 inputs into the factory reducer. Who knows. Two seems to working just fine.

For the record, I have just about everything "extra" disconnected from the cart regarding electrical. The reducer is now just for headlights so draw shouldn't matter at this point.

[R&TBabich]

Originally Posted by Lochlin

.... a 2003 DS. This was a Pathway model that has factory lights on it. The voltage reducer has apparently wet the bed as it is draining the battery pack when the cart isn't is use. How do I know this? When I disconnect the reducer the cart holds a charge just fine. When the reducer is connected the pack drains fairly quickly.
..... Here is the question: The OEM reducer has three lines on one side. ....

The OEM reducer is not a full 48v to 12v reducer which will draw down the batteries it is connected to a little more.
I think it a 16v to 12v reducer connected across 2 batteries.
Charging the whole pack evenly can become an issue.
It is better to get a modern 48v to 12v reducer which might have a 5th wire "trigger" lead.
My reducer has 4 wires so I trigger a 48v relay with a signal from the ignition switch to power it up.