battery and charging question

[davekayse62]

i just picked up a new to me Taylor Dunn pickup. its a 36 volt cart, are the batteries supposed to be hooked up like this? a positive lead that goes right to the negative lead to the other battery? im thinking yes cause that's how you get to 36 volts right?

also im plugging in the charger and the charger is only hooked to the battery on the right, and that battery is reading 15 volts and the other 2 are only reading 11.5, im thinking its not charging properly? do I need to move one of the charging leads to another battery?
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[Stevegrmich]

. . . golf cart batteries are wired in a series circuit, so yes, the positive from one goes to negative of next, resulting in cumulative voltage . . . the battery charger should be connected to the + on one end of the pack, and in some way, the - should be connected on the opposite end of the pack . . . not sure how a Taylor is wired, so I can't provide any more of a definitive answer for that . . . you may want to check the specific gravity in all the cells and load test batteries also . . .

[davekayse62]

ok I moved the positive charging wire to the battery on the left. now it seems to be charging evenly.

another question. how long do you normally charge it for and how do you know when its fully charged? the charger has an amp gauge on it and right now its reading 14 amps and its been on for about an hour. it does have a timer on it but does it stop charging when its fully charged?

[Stevegrmich]

. . . typically, TD vehicles charge in 8-10 hours . . . what type of charger? . . .

[shaffer88]

Depends on the type of charger. How long it takes depends on the charger and the state of charge the battery pack is in

[davekayse62]

well the charger I have been using is a Lester electrical. it looks orginal to the truck, its an 84.

I have a newer ez go charger that came with it also, haven't used it,

I plugged the charger in for a couple of hrs the other day and only the right battery was getting warm. but the guy had the charger only hooked to that battery when I got the cart. im thinking that one is charged but the others still need it.

so im gonna remove the batteries and charge them individually to get them all even with a 12v car battery charger I have in the garage, then try the 36 volt from there

[davekayse62]

after playing with the cart last night, I found that all of the screw post studs are internally bad on all of the batteries!, so I moved all of my terminals to the big round posts and now all it good.

when I check the batteries on the screw posts I was only getting 50-100 cca, but on the round posts I get 600-700 cca. so weird that all would show bad but what ever I guess.

I use this tester and it has never let me down. http://www.toolsource.com/digital-ba...-p-111732.html