02 PDS Battery Help

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by scottyb

See? I told you all battery usage was everything!

Along those same lines, one of the things I've noticed is that some (many?) people are fearful of "Overcharging" their batteries because some of the battery manufactures caution against it and similar cautions and warning appear in cart manuals and charger manuals. It is a valid concern, but the problem is that the definition of what constitutes "Overcharging" is obscure or left out completely.

The best I can determine is that overcharging is when charging current continues to be pumped through a cell after the Specific Gravity ceases to increase.
This can also be stated as when the on-charge volt ceases to increase.

Since a lead-acid cell can be safely taken to at least 2.79V per cell, or 50.22V for the 18 cells of a 36V battery pack, and the typical automatic 36V golf cart battery charger shuts off in the 44-46 volt range, I believe it is next to impossible to overcharge golf cart batteries with an automatic golf cart battery charger. Of course, I might be wrong, but by charging the living daylights out of batteries that weren't charging to their rated capacity, I saw some improvement.

When my springtime "Honey-Do" list gets trimmed down enough to keep me out of the doghouse, I'm going to make the battery sense circuit on a Powerwise II tell lies to the control board and take the batteries to a higher on-charge voltage before it cuts off and see if that will further improve my batteries' terminal voltage after rest.

If it does, great.
If it doesn't, that's okay and I'll find out something I hadn't known before.
If it ruins the batteries, I was planning on replacing them anyway.

[bigcsw]

JohnnieB, Thanks for that recharge plan. Interestingly enough when I was messing around with checking voltages I ended up doing exactly as you prescribed. Living in Minnesota and purchasing the cart this spring, I have no idea how the previous owner took care of the batteries over the winter. But I've been charging them after each use, and then letting them rest a day and then putting it back on the charger, repeating until I use the cart again. Low and behold the cart is performing much better then it did, the hills that it was having trouble with late in my round are no longer an issue. I think this recharge plan is just what the batteries needed to wake them up from there winter slumber. :)

Thanks all for the help!

[scottyb]

Wet cell batteries want to be kept fully charged at all times. When you are done using them replenish. A winter's slumber is a bad idea for a wet cell battery.