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Old 04-07-2014, 09:37 PM   #21
radioman
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

SMT; Never underestimate that troubleshooting a golf cart can't be frustrating and challenging. I have as many years troubleshooting various electronic systems as your batteries have volts but limited experience with Golf Carts. I have never dealt with anything as challenging as a golf cart can be to troubleshoot. My experience with US batteries in other applications was they lasted for a few years and one out of two in a pair in light duty connected in series with a regulated charger properly set to the correct float voltage to provide standby power would fail and cause the other one fail too. Good luck. I will check back tomorrow and see how things turn out with the Blaster. Notwithstanding everything you have done I still suspect a problem with the charger. If the batteries internal resistance is high limiting the charge current to 15 amps, the individual battery voltage while charging should not be low. Something don't add up. Maybe the batteries are weak and not filtering out the ripple from the charger and the DC you are measuring has enough ripple on it to cause the DVM not to read correctly. Good night.
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Old 04-08-2014, 04:25 AM   #22
JohnnieB
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

Since the cart belongs to a Snowbird, I wonder if the batteries were kept charged during the off season and if tap water was ever used instead of distilled water.

The old Western charger was made by DPI, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't float charge and don't know if it did the 28 day maintenance charge routine. A call to DPI would probably solve those unknowns. Of course, it wouldn't make any difference if the Snowbird didn't have the charger plugged into the cart while it was in storage.

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Technically, when a charging current passes though a discharged Lead-Acid cell, the Lead Sulfate on/in the plates is converted back into Lead (Negative plate), Lead Dioxide (Positive plate) and Sulfuric Acid (Electrolyte). The cell voltage rises as this occurs and when all the Lead Sulfate that can be converted back into its original components has been converted, the voltage stops rising.

There are two forms of Lead-Sulfate, amorphous (soft) and crystalline (hard). Soft Lead-Sulfate converts back to its original components fairly readily, but hard Lead-Sulfate doesn't and hard Lead-Sulfate starts forming the moment soft Lead-Sulfate exists, so the discharge/charge cycle isn't 100% efficient and the cell looses a slight amount of its storage capacity each charge cycle. This is the normal battery aging process. Letting a battery sit in a partially discharged state increase the rate the cell ages at.

I think what we have here is 24 Lead-Acid cells that have a charging current passing through them and the voltage isn't rising, so all the Lead-Sulfate that can be converted back into the original components (by conventional charging processes) has been converted. Basically, we have fully charged cells with little or no storage capacity.

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I'm not familiar with what a "Blaster" is, but it'll interesting to hear what it does for them.
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Old 04-08-2014, 06:52 AM   #23
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

Question for JohnnieB. I was just thinking a quick way to prove the charger is working properly and capable of delivering 25 amp of current would be to connect a 5 ohm load across the main terminals while the charge is putting out 15 amps to the batteries and see if the current went up. Using 53 volts measured while charging at a 15 amp rate the battery bank internal resistance works out to 3.53 ohms or about .44 ohms per battery.
(53 volts/15 amps).
A 5 ohm load could be a roll of electrical wire of sufficient length to equal the resistance and handle at least 530 watts. If the charger went up about 10 more amps when additional load connected across the batteries wouldn't that prove the charger is good or bad? Care would need to exercised not to generate any sparks around the charging batteries so a sent of automotive jumpers could be used to connect to the batteries and the load connected to the jumper cables away form the batteries a safe desistance. One quick connection should tell the story if it is charger or batteries.
Your battery theory makes sense. I think you have solved the puzzle.
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Old 04-08-2014, 08:52 AM   #24
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

R'man - A 48V DPI Acusense charger only puts out 17A, or 15A depending on the model#.

How the charger reacts to putting a load in parallel with the battery pack depends on what charging phase the charger is in. Some are constant current while others are constant voltage.

I've more or less eliminated the chargers because there are two of them doing the same thing.
My guess is that the kluge pictured below wouldn't charge these batteries to a higher voltage than they already are and that accident looking for a place to happen circuit will fully charge any Lead-Acid batter, and destroy some in the process.

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I went back and re-read this thread and see in post#8 that the batteries have a 116 minute run time using a Lester Discharge unit. That means they do have a significant storage capacity, so the problem is that for some reason the On-Charge voltage won't climb above 53V.

To get the DPI charger to advance to the next charging phase, the voltage has to reach about 56.4V, so it is going to stay in the Bulk Charge phase forever, or until the safety timer shuts it off if there is one.

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The only things I can think of the would keep the voltage from not rising above 53V is:
All the remaining Sulfate ions are locked up in extremely hard Lead-Sufate crystals. (Severely sulfated plates)
A significant quantity of the electrolyte has been spilled and replaced with water.
The electrolyte has been contaminated with Iron, Nickle or Chloride. (Tap water)
The lower portions of the plates have been eroded due to long term electrolyte stratification.
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Old 04-08-2014, 09:12 AM   #25
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

OK. Good explanation. I am learning a lot just reading. Sometimes I think outside the box.
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Old 04-08-2014, 09:15 AM   #26
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

Johnnie today I will drag out the blaster machine.

But I wanted to address the issue about the snowbird part. I have a service that I take care of snowbirds carts while they are gone.

I go twice a month, and drive the cart, charge the batteries, top off the water. So This particular cart, I originally installed the new batteries, and he used the cart for one 6 month season. Then I took over for the next 6 months doing my thing. Now he has used it for the next 5 months, when this started happening.

When he noticed it first, he came out in the morning, smelled that sulpher smell and saw the charger was still on, at 15 amps.
So he thought maybe water was low because of the smell. So added water, ( no plates were exposed, but it did take a little water.). He used the cart for 18 holes, dash gauge said 1/2 full, so he hooked up the charger.

This repeated for about 10 days, every other day golf, charge after each round, and since the charger would not shut off, he would unplug the charger.
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Old 04-08-2014, 09:33 AM   #27
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

Quote:
Originally Posted by smokey tennis shoe View Post
Johnnie today I will drag out the blaster machine.

But I wanted to address the issue about the snowbird part. I have a service that I take care of snowbirds carts while they are gone.

I go twice a month, and drive the cart, charge the batteries, top off the water. So This particular cart, I originally installed the new batteries, and he used the cart for one 6 month season. Then I took over for the next 6 months doing my thing. Now he has used it for the next 5 months, when this started happening.

When he noticed it first, he came out in the morning, smelled that sulpher smell and saw the charger was still on, at 15 amps.
So he thought maybe water was low because of the smell. So added water, ( no plates were exposed, but it did take a little water.). He used the cart for 18 holes, dash gauge said 1/2 full, so he hooked up the charger.

This repeated for about 10 days, every other day golf, charge after each round, and since the charger would not shut off, he would unplug the charger.
Sounds like a heck of a good off-season program. Now I am at almost a total loss as to why the batteries decided to stop charging normally.

Basically everything I can think of has been eliminated except electrolyte contamination.

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Tell me more about the blaster machine.
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Old 04-08-2014, 09:34 AM   #28
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

The only thing harder on lead acid batteries than cold weather is hot weather.

Only the very best batteries can withstand this type of torture. These customers can afford the best if you explain to them why it is actually less expensive than buy 2 sets of cheaper batteries.
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Old 04-08-2014, 09:44 AM   #29
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

Duh!!! - Thanks Scotty, I finally noticed Smoky's location.

I wonder if anyone has done a study comparing Degree Days above 80°F to reduced battery lifespan.
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Old 04-08-2014, 09:45 AM   #30
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Default Re: charger never gets below 15 amps and won't shut off?

Scotty ,, I agree with you. Especially after seeing how many batteries I have replaced this season, that were 2 years old.

For the last year, I am now only installing Trojans, and ocassionaly USBattery.
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