36volts not enough?

[outdoorsed]

So I was talking to a guy who owns a golf cart repair shop. He was going over my cart and he stated to me that because my cart is a 36 volt cart I do not have enough power to properly run my 500 amp controller or my Plum quick motor. I said to him that the Curtis controller and the P Q motor were made for the 36 volt set up. It says rate on the motor and the controller for 36 or 48 volt. He said to me that may be true, however, if I really want to get any speed or power out of this equipment I need to go to 48. How true is this statement? Right now I run 6, 6 volt batteries. How hard would it be to just add two more 6 volt batteries in series? It sounds pretty simple to me once I designate space for the two new batteries.

[LukeL]

You would need a new charger if you added batteries. You would see quite a big improvement in speed and power with a 48v upgrade.


Club Car DS driver’s club #59

[outdoorsed]

My plan was to eventually do the switch thus everything I've bought is 36 or 48V compatible including the charger. I was originally planning on waiting till I needed to buy new batteries and then run with 8V batteries, but now I'm thinking of just modifying my battery area to carry 8-6Vs instead of the current 6-6Vs.

[LukeL]

You can put two batteries in the bag well and use a heavy gauge cable (2 or 0 awg) to connect them.


Club Car DS driver’s club #59

[outdoorsed]

That's what I said to the cart mechanic too, he said I couldn't but didn't explain why. Because to me, that seemed to be the simplest way to do it.

[LukeL]

I have done it on Ez Go and Club Cars. I have never had a problem adding batteries back there. Once I had two 6v batteries sitting at the floor of the passenger seat, just to test it. That worked fine too! (Not recommended though :-) )

If you have an EzGo TXT, there is an easy space for one battery under the drivers seat.


Club Car DS driver’s club #59

[Mooncarter]

What charger do you have?

[Sir Nuke]

To the OP...what you need to do is leave the machanics shop as those statements are bogus. I built my cart 5 years ago. It runs a 500 amp controller and a high speed motor. AND on 36v. And ran just fine for 5 years just like that. Will upgrading to 48v make it go faster and have more torque? YES...but your car CAN run on 36v it you want it to.

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[LukeL]

Originally Posted by Sir Nuke

To the OP...what you need to do is leave the machanics shop as those statements are bogus. I built my cart 5 years ago. It runs a 500 amp controller and a high speed motor. AND on 36v. And ran just fine for 5 years just like that. Will upgrading to 48v make it go faster and have more torque? YES...but your car CAN run on 36v it you want it to.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Very true


Club Car DS driver’s club #59

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by outdoorsed

That's what I said to the cart mechanic too, he said I couldn't but didn't explain why. Because to me, that seemed to be the simplest way to do it.

If the mechanic had said shouldn't rather than couldn't, he'd have been more correct, but not completely correct. It is a gray area and a choice for the person footing the bill to make.

Unless you can find a couple used batteries about the same age and health as the existing six 6V batteries, you will have an imbalanced battery pack and that reduces the life expectancy of all eight 6V batteries. However, that doesn't mean you cannot add two new batteries to the existing battery pack and get several months of improved performance from you cart.

New batteries will quickly age to the same storage capacity as the existing batteries, so they should be considered sacrificial batteries. Sounds like you are planning to got to 6 x 8V, so the two added batteries won't be used in the future 48V pack anyways.

In other words, you can add two new, economy grade batteries.