electric club car will not run!

[shadowman]

one thing that puzzles me is a 97 with 12 volt batts, so are they 12 volt golf cart batts or 12 volt deep cycles, i suspect deep cycles and if so i would take them out cause that could be the whole problem in a nutshell.......all things being equal if they are true golfcart batteries than they were replaced at one time and i,m not sure at all with the OBC if its original if it can correctly read them i don,t know if the OBC is set up different for reading the newer 12 volt cart batts so that can be a problem..............another thing is he mentioned that he got the batts up to 30 volts and charger kicked on? that dosn,t make sense because you need 36 or so to get past the low voltage sensor.......scotty, something dosn,t sound right to me what say you...........i know in most cases on a 97 when the OBC fails the cart won,t charge at all unless you bypass the low voltage sensor and right now i,m confused about several things, the 12 volt batts......the 30 volts and charger comes on..........so i,m going to start from scratch............exactly what type of battery are they? true golfcart or 12 volt deep cycle..........what type of charger, what color is battery dash light, ok now take readings ......after a complete charge and you let it sit for 1/2 hour take voltage reading from each battery and write them down than take the pack reading and write it down...........than load test them and write down what they drop to and how long before they recover and the voltage reading when they do.............i,m sorry maybe its me but i,m kinda confused so bare with me.....................

[rusty]

Welcome to the forum vec1.....................

[vec1]

The car has 6 - 8 volt batteries. When I got the cart there was only 12 volts across all 6 batteries. I disconnected the jumpers so that there were only 2 in series and charged them with a 12 volt charger. I had the voltage a little over 30 volts and the club car charger still would not start charging. I touched the 12 volt charger across two of the batteries with the club car charger connected. The 12 volt charger boosted the voltage enough to start the charger. It charged the batteries to 48 - 50 volts. I assume I may have a battery problem, and having them tested is a good idea. The reason I have not done it is that when pressing the pedal , I do not see a drop in voltage and am thinking I may have other problems and was hoping to make sure there wasn't other problems before I put to much money into it. The previous owner will still take it back if it has other costly problems. Just to make sure I am looking at the right device when looking for the solonoid..... is it located on the F-R mechanism which activate the three micro-switches for forward and reverse?

[vec1]

Being new to the 48volt club car a wiring diagram would be extremely helpfull. Does anyone know where I would find one ?

[scottyb]

Wiring diagrams and other helpful repeat info is located at the top of each section...click here.
http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/elect...-diagrams.html

On your cart I think it is mounted on the front of the passenger side rear fender well...follow the red battery cable from the last battery in the pack; passenger side. It is helpful to know that it is only an electrically activated switch. 48v into the 2 small terminals and the switch closes the contact between the 2 large terminals. A typical field test is to connect a large cable from one large terminal to the other...basically eliminating the solenoid from the circut.....Do this with the rear of the cart on jack stands to prevent accidents when connecting / testing.....good luck.

[vec1]

Thanks for your patience! Now that I know what I was looking for... I held a jumper between the two large posts on the solonoid and pressed the pedal. The cart will run in forward and reverse. I still may have some battery issues, because the voltage will drop to arround 46 volts accross the batteries when the charger is not conected, but when the charger is charging it will be up arround 55 volts. With the charger charging, having 55 volts at the terminal of the solonoid comming from the battery, I checked the voltage on the other larger terminal on the solonoid. It will slowly climb to around 55 volts. When it gets to arround 55 volts and I press the pedal the tire will move slightly and the voltage will drop. (no click in the solonoid). At the same time the voltage remains at 55 volts from the battery. Before assuming a bad solonoid, what activates the solonoid? What is the purpose of the solonoid if it can be jumered and the cart seems to run fine?

[rusty]

Welcome to the forum kjb_jce...................

[roady89]

The purpose of the solenoid is to make and break the main battery connection powering the controller.....before you ask you CANNOT remove it from the system.....I supposed you could but you are asking for trouble. There is a combination of parts that control the solenoid, keyswitch, throttle, microswitches. Look at the diagram and backtrack from the solenoid to the next component to troubleshoot the system.

When the solenoid is jumped your making the main connection powering the controller, as far as the controller knows the solenoid is working.

[vec1]

Can I assume a bad solonoid or am I missing something...With the key off and the solonoid jumpered-does not move. Key on and solonoid jumpered-does everything you would expect in forward reverse and neutral. The throdle also seems to work fine with solonoid jumpered. Anything else to check before replacing the solonoid?

[scottyb]

You are forgetting the activation circut......