TXT PDS Dies On Non Flat Surfaces.

[Randy000]

Hey all,
I searched through some posts on here about golf carts slowing down going up hills etc, but mine is dying. I have what I believe is an 36V 08' TXT PDS. Its only done this today and once a month or so ago as most of the time we are only running it on mostly flat surfaces and its fine. It started to act like it was dying when hitting some small bumps on the trail and it died trying to make it up a hill. I turned around and made it out of the trail with it dying every couple minutes and having to let it sit a minute. At the nd of the trail it went up over the hill to exit with no issues and I drove it a few miles home with no issues. Batteries load tested good when I got home, they are 3 months old, and it was charged today before we left the house. Ill bring my meter home from work wednesday to test pack voltage while I find some hills around my house. Any other smoking guns you all can lead me to look at? Motor was hot, cool enough to touch but hot enough to not keep my hand there. Thanks for the help in advance.

[orangeman6]

Disclaimer: I'm just a parroter of everything I've learned here, but I like to do the small lifting for the big guns. Post that load test you're talking about. Do it 12 hrs after charge, and going uphill. Post it for the pack, as well as each individual battery. There have been many instances of one random, bad battery. If all of your batteries are good, you need to check all high voltage cables for looseness or corrosion.

[Mooncarter]

[Randy000]

Thanks Mooncarter!
Orange, I currently do not have my meter at my house, I'll bring it home tomorrow from work. Until then I was seeing what I could do. I was trying to put the cartin diagnostic mode but Im not sure if Im doing it right, or if it needs to be driven in diagnotisc mode as well.

[scottyb]

The PDS controller will go into thermal shut down when the amperage flow is high enough to heat it up. The cart will go again as soon as it cools a bit as you describe. Trouble is the more it goes into this shut down the easier it gets to this point again until you find it shuts down at the slightest bit of hard work.

It's time for an upgraded controller. The Alltrax XCT400 control and 200 solenoid is good pick for this cart. You will get 35% more power and top speeds of 23mph on stock tires.

[Randy000]

Hey scotty! Is there any way to check this before swapping it out?

[scottyb]

Drive up a few hills and see if quits, then wait and see if it goes again and repeat, repeat, repeat until you are convinced. This is a fairly common failure for this controller.

You could test several operation functions while the cart is misbehaving but that would require some extensive elimination of other system failures like ignition and throttle inputs but it's highly unlikely these functions are quitting only during high amp draw like hill climbing and the controller problem I described is quite common. Technically if the throttle input is correct and there is (+) power to controller pins 1-9 and all pins at J4 and J3 with no high amp output showing the controller has failed. Work fast because as soon as it cools the testing opportunity has passed until the next failure event.

[Randy000]

Alright thank you Scotty.

[rib33024]

Is your cart all stock? Or do you have larger tires? If you have larger tires than stock, this will happen more

[Randy000]

Rib, I just lifted it and put larger tires on it last weekend. It had only done this once one night a few months back when the kids were driving it around the yard. I thought maybe it was from the battery indicator was showing half charge and they were using the lights which whoever installed the lights only wired it two two batteries to get the 12v. And then it did it again yesterday, we drove around a while with no issues until we found the trail, once off the trail we had no issues. It wasnt slow or crawling like lack of power, the cart would slow to a stop.