ezgo electric hill power

[dannyferris]

does anyone know how to get more hill climbing power out of an 36 volt electric ezgo marathon. seem like we have to get out and push whenever we get to a little grade.

[camaroluvz28]

Sounds like one of two things is happening...either you have a weak battery or battery or battery pack, or your controller is getting weak and it wont be too long before you will need a replacement.

[gornoman]

Hook up a multimeter to your pack. Give us the voltage at rest, while running flat out on flat ground, and while trying to go up an incline.

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by gornoman

Hook up a multimeter to your pack. Give us the voltage at rest, while running flat out on flat ground, and while trying to go up an incline.

That's a great suggestion
With that info you will have a rough assessment of the batteries.
It is typical for a DC vehicle to slow under load. It should however, keep going and not need a push up a small incline so it does sound to me like you may have a weak battery or 2 ?
If the load test shows a voltage drop of more than 5 volts I suggest you move the meter to battery #1 and repeat the test. Record the results and then move the meter to battery #2 and repeat.
Hopefully you have installed some alligator clamps on your test leads to make this easier.....the scientific results are worth the effort.

If you determine your batteries are good, there are controller amperage up grades available too which will increase your torque.

[dannyferris]

thank you all so much for the information. My voltage is 38,6 at rest 36.8 running down the street and in the grass going uphill it hit a low of 35

[dannyferris]

I forgot to mention I am running 3 new 700 cca 12 volt marine batteries for now and I am sure this may have something to do with it. All cables have been changed to 2 gage wires and all contact point have been polished to remove and oxidation. I also did a test run with the solenoid bypassed to see if that might have been the issue but the same results were found.
Once again, Thank you all for the help.

[JohnnieB]

Originally Posted by dannyferris

I forgot to mention I am running 3 new 700 cca 12 volt marine batteries for now and I am sure this may have something to do with it..............

It most likely has everything to do with it.

Marine batteries tend to fall between SLI (Start-Lights-Ignition or car battery) and Deep Cycle batteries and having a CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) rating rather than an AH (Amp Hour) rating, I suspect yours are closer to car batteries in design.

At best, a 12V battery that is roughly the same physical dimensions as a 6V battery will have about the same storage capacity (kWh), but you only have half the number of batteries in your pack, so you only have half the stored energy as a 6 x 6V pack.

Because the amps required to run the cart at 36V is the same no matter what the voltage of the batteries that make up the 36V battery pack is, the smaller cells (Half the size physically) that make up the 12V batteries will drop off in voltage faster than the larger cells on 6V batteries.

Also, due to the fact they are being work twice as hard, the 12V batteries won't last very long.

[scottyb]

Agreed

[camaroluvz28]

Agreed Agreed

[simple man]

I am also using marine deep cycle batteries except mine are rated in amp hours and state " not for starting use "!
Here's a simple way to look at it. One of my batteries weighs 110lbs. A single 6V " Trojan " ( for example ) weighs 72lbs. My 3 batteries total 330lbs. 6 Trojans total 432lbs. That's a big difference in active material! I do not have the range that I would using the 6V batteries. I don't have any problem with hills, but mine is an industrial cart and is geared differently that a golf cart. I hope my explanation helps!