wiring 12v lights to 36v EZGO system

[gulfrunner]

Originally Posted by crash test dummy

NO !! your extra battery is not to be wired into your 36v system !! it is charged with a separate 12v charger it will really screw things up even jumping it into system

The battery is NOT going to be wired into the 36 volt system. The question was if I could charge the extra battery with the 36 volt charger for the cart and it is not going to be a every time thing. Can you give me more reason not to hook it up. I am open to all opinions and suggestion.

Originally Posted by gulfrunner

The battery is NOT going to be wired into the 36 volt system. The question was if I could charge the extra battery with the 36 volt charger for the cart and it is not going to be a every time thing. Can you give me more reason not to hook it up. I am open to all opinions and suggestion.

no you can't charge the extra 12v battery by adding it to your 36v pack unless you take 12volts out of the pack by removing two 6v batteries .. then you have a in-balanced charged pack when you return the batteries to the pack
if you add a 12v battery to a 36v system you get 48v and a 36v charger wont bring the batteries up to max voltage .. even if you use it once it will not charge correctly .. you could charge it with a 48v charger but that's just silly ..remember some short cuts lead to dead ends ... bite the bullet and get a 12v charger to charge the extra battery

[Knothead]

Crash, I'm pretty sure he's talking about paralleling the 12v aux batt to one pair of 6v in the pack, by hooking it (only while charging) to the wires that he is currently getting 12v from for lights. It actually would work, in theory, but would get stuff out of balance fairly quickly, I would think.....

OP.....don't do it......

ya know i could go into a huge reply with facts as to why it wont work ... but i'm old... so i'll just say it wont work

[Knothead]

Originally Posted by crash test dummy

ya know i could go into a huge reply with facts as to why it wont work ... but i'm old... so i'll just say it wont work

I'm old, too, & I agree!!

[gulfrunner]

Originally Posted by Knothead

Crash, I'm pretty sure he's talking about paralleling the 12v aux batt to one pair of 6v in the pack, by hooking it (only while charging) to the wires that he is currently getting 12v from for lights. It actually would work, in theory, but would get stuff out of balance fairly quickly, I would think.....

OP.....don't do it......

I understood the first post from Knothead, I just wanted to hear another reason. I am old too, and love to hear why or what other people reasoning would be. Just cannot understand when someone says it will not work, in theory it will work 12 volts is 12 volts. Like I said it would not be an every day occurrence, I could see it would hurt doing it over a long period.

Originally Posted by gulfrunner

I understood the first post from Knothead, I just wanted to hear another reason. I am old too, and love to hear why or what other people reasoning would be. Just cannot understand when someone says it will not work, in theory it will work 12 volts is 12 volts. Like I said it would not be an every day occurrence, I could see it would hurt doing it over a long period.

go for it !! let us know how you make out

[yurtle]

OK, let me take a stab at this.

Your charger puts out a certain voltage and a certain current. Your batteries are all connected together in series, which means all batteries receive the same current, but the voltage across each battery WILL vary if the batteries are imbalanced. By increasing the Amp Hour rating of two batteries, by adding the extra Amp Hours of the aux battery, they will need more amps (or time) to get to full charge. How much depends on the size of your aux battery relative to the two 6v buggy batts. Since the charger only knows the voltage of the pack, the remaining four buggy batts will take on more charge than the two that are connected to the aux bat.

If you choose to do this, I'd suggest keeping a log and rotate which set of buggy batts you connect to each time you charge the aux bat. This will equalize the pain and suffering to all six buggy batts.

[ab46501]

The two methods that most everyone uses is either a converter or a seperate 12v battery. Why take a chance on damaging the battery pack? Cheaper to do it correctly than to take a chence and have to replace the entire pack IMO.

[yurtle]

He was wanting to use an aux battery, but was hoping there was a better way to charge it than using two chargers.

I've pondered this, and the only way to really do that is to have a converter to charge the aux battery, while charging the pack. The converter would have to have additional circuitry to properly charge the aux battery AND it would have to withstand the highest voltages during the end of a charge cycle. AND, you'd have a converter, so you wouldn't need the aux battery.