36/48v motor vs 36v motor killing batteries

[Edscart]

Originally Posted by Spoonerman

I have a 1999 36volt club car DS mostly stock. Only upgrades have been 20 inch tires and a heavy duty solenoid. It has v-glide and resistor coils. It has been a very durable and dependable cart until the motor burned out a couple weeks ago. I ordered a new motor from a golf cart king that was rated as 36/48v. When it arrived, the sticker on the motor says 48v. I contacted their customer service that I thought I received the wrong motor. However, they replied back that it was correct and just a label issue.
Here’s the problem. I installed it with no problem but on the 1st day of use, the batteries ran down in about 1/3rd the time as usual. All batteries are about 2 years old, fully hydrated, fully charged and test good.
Here are the questions. What’s the difference in a 36v vs a 36/48v motor and is there something I should do to make this work like it used to or do I just have an incompatible motor?

I believe you have a series motor.
If your batteries are low more power has to come from current, which is not good, burn things up. You want to get more voltage.
First step is to check if your controller is 36V/48v. If so add batteries to get to 48V. If not add a 6V battery, 36v controllers seem to have no issue with another 6V.

I have a 36V marathon with a GE series 2HP 36V motor. With 22’s on it ran 13mph and struggled up any hill. I added a 6V battery and it went 15mph and climbed better. From posts I saw the series motors could handle a lot more Voltage. I purchased a used 72V Curtis controller from a forklift (0-5K throttle) bought 6 12V deep cycle batteries from Walmart (size 24DC), WOW 🤩

I cruise at 20mph, top speed is 26mph. Motor runs cool

[Tom47]

Originally Posted by Fairtax4me

Scotty might ban you for that, Tom… :

OMG, I'm DEAD! Buggies Gone Wild and Carts Unlimited, Not Carts Gone Wild and Buggies Unlimited!

What a stupid mistake! Please forgive me if you can, Scotty.

And thank you to Fairtax, CP241 and DundeeBarnBuggy for going so easy on me.

[CP241]

Originally Posted by Edscart

I believe you have a series motor.
If your batteries are low more power has to come from current, which is not good, burn things up. You want to get more voltage.
First step is to check if your controller is 36V/48v. If so add batteries to get to 48V. If not add a 6V battery, 36v controllers seem to have no issue with another 6V.

I have a 36V marathon with a GE series 2HP 36V motor. With 22’s on it ran 13mph and struggled up any hill. I added a 6V battery and it went 15mph and climbed better. From posts I saw the series motors could handle a lot more Voltage. I purchased a used 72V Curtis controller from a forklift (0-5K throttle) bought 6 12V deep cycle batteries from Walmart (size 24DC), WOW 🤩

I cruise at 20mph, top speed is 26mph. Motor runs cool

First current and voltage are 2 completely different things. Adding another battery or two even does not change the current draw demands tie motor is asking for.

Again, it’s not the motor being compatible with 48v that draws more current. It’s the fact that it is a beefier motor than stock. You can run a 35v motor on 48v all day long and you could really run a 48v motor on 12v if you really wanted to. You won’t be going anywhere very quickly but it will turn the motor just fine. An electric motor is nothing more than magnets and coils that reverse polarity (electromagnet) ti make the opposing magnetic forces push against each other and thus spin the motor. The difference here is he got a performance motor with heavier duty internals which withstand a lot more abuse and create a lot more magnetic “push” inside it, which draws more current to do so. This is why the batteries don’t last as long.

Secondly he said in the very first post that it’s a 36 v cart with resistor coils. They never made a 36v sepex cart and resistor coils by definition mean there is no speed controller. This is 1980’s technology at its finest.

Third he said he doesn’t want to convert to 48v. Doing this the “proper” way is a pretty costly project. There are cheaper ways to go about it and it works fine, better on the older carts but many of the v-glide carts pass the current to the resistors through the v-glide and converting to 48v the cheap way results in melted v-glide contacts.

[CP241]

Originally Posted by Tom47

OMG, I'm DEAD! Buggies Gone Wild and Carts Unlimited, Not Carts Gone Wild and Buggies Unlimited!

What a stupid mistake! Please forgive me if you can, Scotty.

And thank you to Fairtax, CP241 and DundeeBarnBuggy for going so easy on me.

You used your freebie. Next time is a different story

[Tom47]

Originally Posted by CP241

You used your freebie. Next time is a different story