Underglow lights keep draining battery

[zingerbateman]

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this but when my cart sits for an extended time without running, the lights will turn on and completely drain my battery? I have a Blue Sea terminal box where all my accessories are fused and the only way I can prevent the drain is to pull the fuse for the underglow. Has anyone else had this happen? Thanks

[kgsc]

This have a wireless controller for the lights? Maybe battery is getting week and switching them on. May not be ideal but you could put a manual disconnect in the circuit when you leave it for extended periods.

[zingerbateman]

Originally Posted by kgsc

This have a wireless controller for the lights? Maybe battery is getting week and switching them on. May not be ideal but you could put a manual disconnect in the circuit when you leave it for extended periods.

Yeah, there's 2 keyfobs for the lights but they stay in the glovebox and only get used when I want to turn on the underglow lights. If you disconnect the battery cables, and then reconnect the cables, the lights start up flashing without the keyfobs? I don't know why.

[kgsc]

It is a wireless system so it is constantly looking for a signal to do something.. Mine doesn’t have these fancy options so I dunno

[CP241]

If I was a betting man, and this can be proven out...

The lights are turned on/off with the key fob. So they are never actually “off”. They’re always “asleep” waiting for the key fob to send a signal. This creates a small drain. Maybe a couple hundred mA. And when voltage drops below a certain point, they probably start misbehaving due to a low voltage situation, reset and turn on. This isn’t uncommon with China gear.

Use a meter and set it to the 10A setting. Remove the underbody light fuse and see what kind of current draw they are creating when they sit “off”. The. You can do the math based on the capacity of your battery and see how long it takes it to drain down. I’d estimate they will start acting up around 10.5v based on previous experience, but that’s just a total guess not knowing what you have or anything about it.

You can also do the same thing but at the negative battery terminal. Disconnect the negative terminal. Put the black probe on the battery post and the red terminal on the cable. See what kind of current it’s drawing.

While the LED’s may be what’s actually killing the battery once they freak out and turn on (because they reset and default to on like you just plugged them in) if you have a radio, or other accessories installed in the cart they all draw little bits of current when they’re off. And add them all up, 50mA here, 10mA there, etc. adds up pretty quick. And it’ll kill a battery in a couple days. Or at least drop the battery voltage enough to make the LED’s freak out and when they turn on I’ll guess a couple amps, which will kill a battery overnight the rest of the way at that point.

[CP241]

Edit: when you remove the underbody fuse, insert your meter probes into the 2 fuse terminals from where the fuse came from.

[zingerbateman]

Originally Posted by CP241

If I was a betting man, and this can be proven out...


While the LED’s may be what’s actually killing the battery once they freak out and turn on (because they reset and default to on like you just plugged them in) if you have a radio, or other accessories installed in the cart they all draw little bits of current when they’re off. And add them all up, 50mA here, 10mA there, etc. adds up pretty quick. And it’ll kill a battery in a couple days. Or at least drop the battery voltage enough to make the LED’s freak out and when they turn on I’ll guess a couple amps, which will kill a battery overnight the rest of the way at that point.

Well, that sounds like what has been happening! Thank you for your explanation! I wonder why nobody else seems to have this problem unless it's because they are driving their carts daily?

The only other accessories I have (besides headlights) is a cigarette lighter and small LED's inside the glove box and under dash but they are on their own switch.

I guess the easiest way to prevent this from happening is to just pull the fuse and install the fuse whenever I want to use the underglow lights. I did buy them from LEDGlow. Thanks again!

[CP241]

You could also install a simple toggle switch somewhere to turn them off and on instead of pulling the fuse. Just make sure to get a heavy duty one around 10A rating. Those LED’s will never pull anywhere near 10 amps so no need for a relay or anything, but it will last a lot longer than the cheesy little mini ones.

To be honest in my electric DS I’ve just been pulling the fuse for my 48v->12v converter and popping it in when I want to use it. But that’s because I’m lazy lol but I’m putting the lithium batteries in this weekend so will probably wire it to a switch when I upgrade all the wires

[jmneed]

Did you ever wire a kill toggle switch on the 48V line to the converter? If so what switch did you use?