PowerDrive 1 Breaker tripping

[Fairtax4me]

Your battery charger charges higher than 50 volts. Maybe that is a problem

He has the right breaker.
The breakers are on the AC (input) side, so the AC rating is what really matters.
The DC rating on the breaker does make a difference for the overall amp capacity of the breaker, but in these chargers it is NOT handling DC voltage so that DC number does NOT have to be higher than the nominal output of the charger.

[Fairtax4me]

Originally Posted by FZ0niner

I'm thinking I just replace the Heatsink, relay and breaker on the charger. Any recommended vendors for this?

I would test the transformer coil first.
The relay won't cause the breaker to trip. Its either on or off.
The diode set will usually cause the breaker to trip within a few seconds, not minutes.
The breaker may still be suspect but if you've replaced that already the most likely next culprit is a shorted coil in the transformer. I saw some instructions from Lester at one point a while back for how to test the transformer but can't seem to find them now. Hopefully someone else here knows.

[rib33024]

Originally Posted by Fairtax4me

He has the right breaker.
The breakers are on the AC (input) side, so the AC rating is what really matters.
The DC rating on the breaker does make a difference for the overall amp capacity of the breaker, but in these chargers it is NOT handling DC voltage so that DC number does NOT have to be higher than the nominal output of the charger.

learned something new

[FZ0niner]

Okay, so I had some time today to open up the PD1 again and test the Diodes and Transformer coil.

Set my multimeter to 20M Ohms and probed the screw side of each diode and used the copper base plate as ground.

Terminal #1 with Diode : 3.36
Terminal #2 no Diode: 0.00
Terminal #3 with Diode : 3.36

If I'm not mistaken, all the diodes should have 0.00 continuity in order to pass?

Then I tested the coil on the same setting for the Muiltimeter. I had to scrape a protected layer off the coil to get positive contact with the probe and then I tried different grounds in the housing. The MultiMeter registered no readings, not 0.00 or anything, just a number 1 which is what it does if the probes are not in contact with anything. Not sure what else to try here on the coil.

If the Diodes are bad, I'm okay with replacing them, but if the transformer is bad, something tells me Im in the market for a new charger.

I'm off to pick up a proper manual charger for the batteries, the Battery Tender I've been using does not seem like the right tool for this.

[FZ0niner]

quick question, for manually charging batteries, should I use a 10amp or 15 amp auto charger?

[Fairtax4me]

Diodes are good. If one was bad it would either show infinite resistance or much lower resistance than the other.

You checked the coil for short to ground, but normally if a coil fails it shorts to itself somewhere within the winding. That reduces the overall resistance of the coil, which means higher amperage will flow through the coil.
Checking resistance of the coil can only be done after disconnecting the leads and isolating the coil.
The primary coil is only connected to the relay which makes it easy.
The secondary coils are connected via the fuse in the front panel and at the diode set so the leads must be disconnected at both the fuse and diodes before you can check the resistance of the coils.
If I remember right you should see similar resistance values for all three coils. Somewhere between 17-20 Ohms seems to stand out but I can't find the exact info.

The real test for the coils is to voltage test them live. I couldn't find the exact procedure, but I do remember testing voltage at the diodes some time ago on one I have. This requires working on a live AC circuit and can be dangerous. Do this at your own risk.

Bypass the relay by removing the primary coil input lead from the relay and connecting it to the circuit breaker. This forces the charger ON when the unit is plugged in. Make sure the DC output plug is unplugged. Make sure no other wires are touching and plug the AC cord into an outlet.
Now you can check the AC output voltage of the coils at the diodes and compare voltage of each secondary coil. They should match pretty closely. Within 3-5V IIRC. 35-40VAC on each seems about right. Now unplug the AC cord.
Remove the coil leads from the diodes and make sure they can't touch anything. Plug the AC cord back in, AC voltage across the two should be somewhere in the 100V range IIRC.

If the voltage is significantly less than that, but the secondary coil voltages are even, the primary is shorted.
If the voltage on either secondary coil is significantly lower than the other, one of the secondary coils is shorted. Either way, as you've said, the transformer by itself is nearly as much as a new charger.

A 10 amp will work fine, but I think a 15 amp charger is much more useful in the long run than a 10 amp. If the 15 amp has several settings I'd probably go for that one.

[FZ0niner]

So all the troubleshooting was pointing to the transformer as being the culprit. So I called local shops around to see if they had any used chargers for sale. My local guy said bring the charger in and they could try and fix it. I figured it was worth a shot.

So I took it down there and 30 min later they came back out with it and said it was fixed. Apparently one of the DC wires was in bad condition, they replaced it with a heavier gauge wire and it was able to charge without tripping the breaker. I'll post pictures of the work soon.

I take the charger back home, plug it in and waited. No tripping beyond the 2 min average. Let the charger run for 4-5 hours and it eventually turned off.

My batteries are now measuring:

Bat 1: 12.6
Bat 2: 12.6
Bat 3: 12.7
Bat 4: 12.7

In total I'm up to 50.6v

The state of charge for these batteries is 12.73v for 100%. So I think I'm good.. does that sound right?

I went ahead and plugged the charger back in just to see what it will do, its been running for 10 min and the ammeter is just under 10.

[Fairtax4me]

Good to hear they found something simple! That charger should be in good shape for quite a while now with all the other new stuff in there!

After the OBC in the cart has seen the charger plugged in and unplugged several times it defaults to a standard charge mode rather than trying to replenish the calculated used energy. Your batteries may need a little more time on charge to reach total full charge again, but at this point it's safe to use the cart as normal. A couple cycles and they'll be just fine. Be sure to plug it in to charge after each use.

[FZ0niner]

Originally Posted by Fairtax4me

Good to hear they found something simple! That charger should be in good shape for quite a while now with all the other new stuff in there!

After the OBC in the cart has seen the charger plugged in and unplugged several times it defaults to a standard charge mode rather than trying to replenish the calculated used energy. Your batteries may need a little more time on charge to reach total full charge again, but at this point it's safe to use the cart as normal. A couple cycles and they'll be just fine. Be sure to plug it in to charge after each use.

Although I didn't fix it myself, I feel like I learned a great deal about golf carts in the process thanks to this forum and its kind members.

Thank you and everyone who helped out.