Club Car add on light kit problems

[bbriggs]

Originally Posted by Stevec3201

Do you think regen puts in more amps than the charger? When regen kicks in, I don't even notice my meter changing, so it can't be that much. I would stay clear of any converter that can't handle regen.

In a street electric vehicle I'd be surprised if regen didn't put in more amps than the charger, and I guess I'd be surprised if that weren't true on a golf car on a decent hill. How fast would a golf car accelerate on 20 amps, and would we expect deceleration to be much different? Prius runs their batteries at 80% charge, I think, so there is some headroom for regenerative braking. But it isn't amps that are the concern, it's the volts. With full batteries at the start of the day, where does one send the juice from regen?

In any case, I think it's interesting that your voltmeter doesn't budge under regen. The Servicemate converters in either 15 amp and 25 amp form were the only ones I found claiming overvoltage protection on both the front side and the back side - making them tolerant to such things as regenerative braking. They are the only ones I found that even mention regenerative braking. Didn't know if that might be an issue for our little cars.

[Stevec3201]

It is an interesting topic..I've done lots of research on converters before I bought mine, and nobody mentioned any converter failing due to regen.

Your point is valid, though. Just where would those volts go, if the batts were full. I guess the batts must absorb that excess voltage, otherwise other components would fail.

[trigger1937]

bbriggs,... The Regen output from the motor has to go directly to the batteries and those batteries act like a "GIANT CAPACITOR OF UNLIMITED FARADS". Just as when you are charging the batteries, the charger can put out 15amps of constant current and can't hardly raise the battery voltage by 1 volt. Having said that,..batteries can take all kinds of spikes, arks, etc. without much of a problem. However, most everything connected to the last battery isn't protected if something comes loose. I expect the MFG. is just protecting themselves.

By the way,... a Volt meter won't even see the voltage spike of regen. You would need an oscilliscope to trap and hold that pulse of "Microseconds Long"