97 Club Car 48 V Carryall 2 Charging problems

[Jakob]

I am a newbie here, great forum btw.

I just bought a 97 Carryall 2, with a new battery pack. The previous owner was not able to make it charge properly after the new battery pack was installed.

The problem now is that I am not able to charge it. I have tried to reset the OBC, and had the charger plugged in for about 24 hrs after this. Before I disconnected the charger it read 50.4V, when I disconnected it read 49.8, and after 2 hrs it read 47.4V. There is an Amp meter on the Charger and it read just above 0.

I guess it's either the charger or the OBC that is shot. Is there a way to determine which of these that are shot?

Thanks.

[scottyb]

THe simplist way is to find another cart with the same charger and try yours on theirs and theirs on yours!

[Jakob]

Thanks for the very quick reply. I live in Norway, and golf carts are not very common around here, so I think it will be difficult for me to find another one around here :(. Is there any other way to determine this?

Should there be any clicking sounds in cart or charger when I plug it in?

[scottyb]

The charger will click when it recognizes the battery pack ( a minimum voltage is required for this) then in a moment it will turn on ..... There is a way to bypass the OBC ...... try this:

OBC bypass & Test =
The black wire coming out of charge recepticle has a yellow fuse holder, open it up and connect a jumper from the end coming out of recepticle to the negative on Battery 6 or the last one in series. Plug in the charger if it comes on your OBC is most likely TOAST.

[Jakob]

Thanks again for your quick reply.

I just tried the OBC bypass, but no change. The charger still reads just below 1 amp on the amp meter. And the batteries read 48.4 with the charger plugged in, and keeps rising with 0.1 V every other minute or so. Also found that the fuse has been replaced with a crimp connector :). The charger gives a click and then starts to buzz, both with and without the bypass.

I have a few new questions:
1. What should the amp meter on the charger read when everything is OK?
2. What should the voltage on the batteries be with the charger plugged in?
3. Which fuse should be in that yellow fuse holder.
4. Any other ideas on what I could try to locate the problem?

[GLEEMO]

my guess is you have at least 1 bad battery.
Try testing each battery separately with a digital Volt meter.
Or even better use a Hydrometer on the batteries and check according to chart.
http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/elect...-readings.html

[GLEEMO]

Is this Norway Kansas or the country ?

Welcome to BGW

[Jakob]

Thanks, the batteries should be all new, but I'll give it a try anyway.

That's Norway the country.

[scottyb]

Typically the charge cycle starts out high ( 15-20amps) and after 30-90 minutes depending up your batteries condition it should drop to 10-12 and then later to 5-7amps for the finishing part of the charge cycle..... at full charge input the pack could read 52- 55 volts.... The obc is the brain for the charger. But there could be something wrong with your transformer too. Maybe someone else who knows more will add something here?

[GLEEMO]

well with all new batteries , it's probably not the batteries.
Even new batteries need many charges, 20-50 to get them up to max.
A charge cycle can be as short as after 15 minutes of run time.
PS a charge cycle can take as long as 12 hours and you will hear batteries bubble this is normal.
Make sure you have 1/2 to 3/4 Inch of distilled water above plates.

Try doing the OBC reset and let the OBC re-learn the new Batteries .
The OBC talks to the PowerDrive charger and tells it many things .
If the charger and OBC are working correctly , then there is a fail safe to keep from overcharging batteries , it will shut off after 16 hours if battery charge cycle has not completed !

Here are OBC reset instruction http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/elect...tting-obc.html