RSS FeedsA Golf Cart is not a Computer
If you need help with a golf cart, I suggest asking at Buggies Unlimited. Nice people, very helpful. There is almost NO chance that I can answer ANY question here!
I bought a used electric golf cart last year. Unfortunately, this year the darn thing stopped working.
By the way, I don't play golf. We live in a gated community with private roads, so we can use golf carts to get around. It's a pretty big place - we're more than two miles from the clubhouse and mail center, so the cart is really nice to have, though more for my wife than for me. Her arthritis keeps her from doing more than fifteen minutes or so.. But even for me it's nice to have in rainy weather when I want to run down to get the mail or whatever.
You can't let batteries discharge over the winter, so when it got cold I moved it out back near an electrical outlet where I could plug the charger in. The the charging circuit on this is supposed to be smart enough to only run when necessary, so it should be safe to just plug it in and forget it, but I'm not trusting. I hooked up a voltmeter so I could keep an eye on the charge and do it manually. It turned out that turning on the charger every few days kept the voltage up where it should be.. or so I thought.
After the snow melted, I drove the cart from out back of the house to the driveway and gave it another charge, then took it out for a spin. Two hundred feet later it stopped dead and I had to push it back.. good exercise, yes, but not what I had in mind.
I had bought the tech manual for this, so I'm not entirely helpless. It is an electric cart, and I grok electric stuff to some degree, and have voltmeters and clips and all that stuff to test with. The manual is pretty detailed and shows test points and expected resistance or voltage for just about everything. I was actually pretty hopeful when I flipped through it to the troubleshooting section.
Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. I was able to eliminate some of the more obvious things that could be wrong, but then things started getting not so easy: the things I needed to get at are underneath the main body - no matter how I twisted, there's no way I can get at the places I need to poke my leads.
Aaargh. The manual does have instructions for removing the body cover, but it's a fair pile of work, and there's a lot of rusty looking stuff that has to come off. Rusty looking stuff scares me because sometimes you can take it off but you can't put it back on.. which often leads to a situation where I have to pay someone money to fix what I broke in addition to what was already broken.
I'm ready to give up now - I have bad feelings about pushing my limited mechanical skills farther. My wife, however, cheerfully says that I should "call someone". By that she doesn't mean someone who fixes these things for a living; she means someone in the neighborhood.
Certainly there are people in the neighborhood better with tools than I am. There are probably monkeys at the zoo who are better. But do I really think any of them have ever taken apart a golf cart? Well, I know that one of them has, but still: I'd rather leave the whole thing to someone with a lot of experience.
So there we are. Dead golf cart. Wife says I should call a neighbor. I want to call the golf cart place to just come get it. Instead I found http://server1.buggiesunlimited.com/phpBB2/ and described what I've been able to do so far.. they say it might the On Board Computer - a pricey little item, of course. Aaargh!
But after mulling this over, I decided to pull the batteries. They are the weakest link because they are so old, and I also found out something disturbing: the previous owner had let them run down over one winter. The people who told me that said they were the place he had bought it from. I had called them looking for prices on the batteries, and they remembered this cart. They had been able to revive the batteries, but said they were surprised: they had actually reversed polarity.. that's NOT good.
I'd be really mad at the guy who sold it to me if were not for the fact that I knew the batteries weren't going to last long. No, he didn't tell me they had frozen, but I did know that they were six years old, and that's very old for this kind of battery. So, yeah, he "cheated" me, but only a little.
A new set is around $800.00, and it looks like I'm going to need that no matter what. So I pulled them.
By the way, that's not easy to do. These puppies are in tight spaces and are very heavy - over 60 lbs each. I'm pretty strong, but it wasn't easy for me to get them out. I grabbed one post with vise-grips and the other with pliers and lifted until I could get underneath with my free hand.. not easy. Pro's probably have some tool to help out..
Once I had them all out, it was easy to see that things weren't good. The sides were actually bulged out and although three of them were putting out a strong 8V, one was at 4V and the two others were at 6V - they all need to be at least 7V and within a half volt of each other. They also need to put out at least 42V overall - these would have been maybe 38V at best. I had thought I had measured 48V when I had them ganged together, but either my meter was off or my eyes are.. these are bad batteries for sure.
I checked around the Internet for price, but you don't want to pay shipping on these things, so I needed someplace close by. Turned out that someone I know from some political activity in the town is a dealer for the Trojan T-875's I needed. I called him, and he was $20 cheaper than the best Internet price I could find so I asked him to get me six.. it came to a bit over $800.00 with tax, but that is what it is.
While waiting for those I ordered new cables and a battery lifting strap from Buggies Unlimited - another $22.00 but why put in new batteries without new cables and the lifting strap would save my fingers from being crushed putting them back in.
Everything came yesterday, but it was raining so I waited until this morning before putting them in. That strap definitely made the difference. The batteries are still heavy, but you can position them easily and just drop them in gently. Within a half hour I had everything in place, cinched down, connected and ready. I put the key in, turned it on, released the brake and..
Success! The beast lives again.
What's this got to do with Linux or Unix or Mac? Nuttin.
If you need help with a golf cart, I suggest asking at Buggies Unlimited. Nice people, very helpful.
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Tue Jun 9 15:44:07 2009: 6478 anonymous
I have an E-Z- go gas powered golf cart and when I press on the gas pedal to start it nothing happens. battery is new and it was working fine and all of a sudden it doesnt start. can you help in determining what could possibly be wrong with it??
Tue Jun 9 15:49:13 2009: 6479 TonyLawrence
Well, no, I can't help but the forum at http://server1.buggiesunlimited.com/phpBB2/ is a good place to start.
Also, you can buy a manual for your cart and it has wiring schematics and troubleshooting guides: http://www.buggiesunlimited.com/search.asp?keyword=ezgo+manual&x=0&y=0
Wed Aug 26 21:06:42 2009: 6793 george
i just bought a electric golf cart and with the key off it is still getting power to the forward and reverse other words itsworking and should not be tried taking wires off of key switch and even runnig ajumper wire between the 2wires that go to the key switch on/ off .Could this be the solinoid sticking or something else
Wed Aug 26 21:10:04 2009: 6794 TonyLawrence
I don't know - suggest asking at http://server1.buggiesunlimited.com/phpBB2/
They are usually very helpful there.
Tue Oct 6 13:45:45 2009: 7080 Peter
Any help out there? I have an EZGO electric cart that was driving great, I went over a slight bump, (a PVC waste line cap) and may have bumped the undercarriage....not sure. anyway, now the cart will not go, no click when you hit the gas. any ideas?
Tue Oct 6 13:47:33 2009: 7081 TonyLawrence
Again, I don't know and suggest asking at http://server1.buggiesunlimited.com/phpBB2/
Sat Jan 16 16:21:01 2010: 7915 Paul
I let my batteries completely drain and now the charger won't turn on, do batteries need to have some charge in them in order for the charger to come on? i just had the charger serviced so I assume it's working, thanks
Sat Jan 16 16:25:18 2010: 7916 TonyLawrence
I think it does, yes. But ask that question at http://server1.buggiesunlimited.com/phpBB2/ - they'll know for sure.
Sun Jan 17 02:36:04 2010: 7918 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
Tony, you missed your calling. You should quit this computer stuff and instead fix golf carts. If I lived near you I'd be doing it. <Grin> So far, nobody has figured out a way to export golf cart repair to India and make money doing so.
To the fellow who ran his batteries totally flat, throw them away, meaning recycle them. As you pay for the new ones, remember that batteries must be maintained with periodic charging, even when the cart is not being used. Most electronically controlled chargers will not produce any output if connected to completely dead (as in the DVM-reads-zero-dead) batteries. The old transformer-rectifier chargers that predominated in the past will produce output no matter what.
Sun Feb 14 21:15:50 2010: 8086 Beachcart
I have an E-Z- go gas powered golf cart and when I press on the gas pedal to start it nothing happens. battery is new and it was working fine and all of a sudden it doesnt start. can you help in determining what could possibly be wrong with it??
Sun Feb 14 21:29:04 2010: 8087 TonyLawrence
Yes. Read the comments.
Mon Feb 15 04:50:50 2010: 8089 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
Tue Jun 9 15:44:07 2009: anonymous
I have an E-Z- go gas powered golf cart and when I press on the gas pedal to start it nothing happens. battery is new and it was working fine and all of a sudden it doesnt start. can you help in determining what could possibly be wrong with it??
Sun Feb 14 21:15:50 2010: Beachcart
I have an E-Z- go gas powered golf cart and when I press on the gas pedal to start it nothing happens. battery is new and it was working fine and all of a sudden it doesnt start. can you help in determining what could possibly be wrong with it??
Tony. yuh notice anything odd here? <Grin>
BTW, to those who can't get their golf carts started or otherwise functional, take a look at the driver's seat interlock switch. These devices have a long history of causing golf carts, lift trucks, etc., to suddenly go lame. I could offer a method of fixing the problem without any tools, but it's an inherently hazardous technique and I don't want anyone trying to start a lawsuit over it.
Sun Aug 14 14:25:34 2011: 9699 Bill
My Ezgo just stopped. The batteries are fully charged. I cleaned the cables and checked the wires going to the solenoid and black box behind the solenoid. No burned wires that I can find. Press the accelerator and you can hear the solenoid click. Help
Sun Aug 14 14:32:23 2011: 9700 TonyLawrence
Please read the other comments. I can't help you.
Sun Aug 14 20:04:27 2011: 9705 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
I'm telling you, Tony. You need to start up a golf cart repair business, or at least a 24 hour 1-900 hotline. I can see it now: a buck a minute for wrong answers and five smackers a minute for the right ones.
Tue Feb 28 13:44:05 2012: 10663 Donnie
I recently bought a used golf cart like 2weeks ago drove it around neighborhood one time two days later my kids told me it wouldn't start,I googled many sites and tried everybodies suggestions nothing silenoid clicked when gas peddle was pushed but nothing after 2 hours of crawling around on the ground I started looking around gas pedal I reached in and pulled out grass ,pine needles,4 golf tees,pencil,coffee stir stick and pushed pedal wallah it's fixed and we drove it all day easy fix just try it
Tue Feb 28 16:27:44 2012: 10664 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
Ah yes, the topic that refuses to die. <Grin>
Tue Feb 28 16:30:59 2012: 10665 TonyLawrence
Surprising, isn't it? Golf carts everywhere..
Wed Feb 29 16:07:51 2012: 10673 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
Surprising, isn't it? Golf carts everywhere.
Not so much around here. Instead we have people cruising about on electric scooters. We have one elderly woman who drives right down the middle of the street with her dog in her lap. She won't even move over for cars.
I'm going to get me a scooter when I'm old enough to have one (gotta be at least 80, otherwise you look lazy). Mine will have slicks and wheelie bars, and be able to burn rubber (on the tires, that is, not the wiring). <Grin>
Thu Mar 1 20:55:19 2012: 10678 anonymous
I have a ez go m101 use it at a small airport it makes radio interference when i use it to the aircraft radios, we have tried static straps and nothing seems to work any suggestions
Thu Mar 1 21:10:56 2012: 10679 TonyLawrence
I sure don't. I would imagine that a big electric motor like that throws out a bit of emi.. but I have no idea how you'd stop that.
Someone more geeky may have some thoughts.
Fri Mar 2 15:52:38 2012: 10688 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
I have a ez go m101 use it at a small airport it makes radio interference when i use it to the aircraft radios, we have tried static straps and nothing seems to work any suggestions
Most likely, the interference is being generated by the golf cart's power controller. Typical controllers use pulse width modulation to vary the current to the golf cart's traction motor. PWM generates a major amount of RFI that can radiate considerable distance.
You may be able to somewhat ameliorate the problem by shielding all external connections to the controller with conductive braid and grounding the braid at one point on the cart's metal chassis. Also make sure the traction motor's frame is grounded to the cart's chassis (the motor may be floating on rubber). A static strap is not likely to do much, but won't cause any harm.
If your shielding efforts are to no avail, you may have to replace the motor controller with one that has an FCC class A or class B certification (the latter is the most stringent). That's an expensive remedy, however.
One other thing: Tony's site is actually devoted to computers, not golf carts. The fact that you were directed here by your favorite search engine points out the obvious limitations of search engines in general.
Fri Mar 2 16:01:38 2012: 10689 TonyLawrence
But because smart folks like you sometimes hang out here, he did get an answer :)
Fri Mar 2 16:14:35 2012: 10691 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
But because smart folks like you sometimes hang out here, he did get an answer :)
Me schmaht? We startin' that "wicked schmat" stuff again? Kancha tell I is a big, dumb dinosaur, although not as big as I used to be (I've lost 30 pounds, mostly in the cranial area)? :-)
Sun Apr 15 01:40:36 2012: 10852 anonymous
I have a gas powered golf cart.It does fine until I go up a hill then get gets slower and slower what is wrong with it?
Sun Apr 15 02:19:10 2012: 10853 TonyLawrence
That could be normal. These things aren't high power engines. Could be belt slippage, needs tuneup, just plain worn out engine.l
Sun Apr 15 16:34:24 2012: 10855 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
Tony, it's amazing how much traffic you've gotten from one measly article about a dead electric golf cart. :-) It's also amazing how new arrivals obviously haven't bothered to read the older posts before complaining about how their cart won't climb Mount Everest, run on discharged batteries or do wheelies for two blocks.
Sun Apr 15 16:35:32 2012: 10856 TonyLawrence
Ayup - nobody reads nuttin :)
Tue May 29 17:20:08 2012: 11032 anonymous
i have a gas powered yamaha golf cart. recently replaced the starter generator. it ran good for a while but now it wont budge. i charge the battery and it may run for a couple of hours but eventually it dies. like i said the battery is holding somewhat of a charge but not enough to make it go. thinking maybe a bad voltage regulator
Sat Aug 25 12:44:22 2012: 11254 Dennis
rack out, built a new one and reinstalled everything. Now when you first take off the cart jumps and bucks until you reach full speed and then it I have a 1998 ezgo and the battery rack was rusted out, so i pulled the old smooths out. Anyone have any suggestions?
Sat Aug 25 12:50:02 2012: 11255 TonyLawrence
Once again: I suggest asking at http://server1.buggiesunlimited.com/phpBB2/
Sat Aug 25 18:10:05 2012: 11256 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
Not sure I understood that last message. Anyone care to translate?
Tue Sep 11 19:14:52 2012: 11299 anonymous
I have a 2001 Yamaha N432,48volt golf cart. When I put it in reverse it goes,however when I put it in forward it jerks then goes very very slow and dies out. I have only used it fully charged but I still have this prpoblem. Could you tell me what part I would need or just what is wrong with it. Thank you
Tue Sep 11 22:39:54 2012: 11301 TonyLawrence
Sigh..
Thu Sep 13 13:46:37 2012: 11313 BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
I have a 2001 Yamaha N432,48volt golf cart. When I put it in reverse it goes,however when I put it in forward it jerks then goes very very slow and dies out. I have only used it fully charged but I still have this prpoblem. Could you tell me what part I would need or just what is wrong with it.
Tony, I have a cough, my back hurts, I have to get up several times a night to pee and my vision is bad. Could you please tell me what's wrong? While you're at it, I have this golf cart... :-)
Thu Sep 13 13:49:07 2012: 11314 anonymous
Tony, I'm too lazy to read the whole article, never mind the comments, so please answer my question?
Sun Nov 18 16:16:23 2012: 11432 Ray
I have a 1985 ez-go gas powered cart i just need a picture of how the starter/gen wires up
Sun Nov 18 16:18:26 2012: 11433 TonyLawrence
I have no such picture.
Tue Mar 5 22:25:00 2013: 11933 craig
have electric ez-go when i press on the padle real easy like you are going over bumps just to go slow or take it easy it dies out like the battiers are dead but they are new fully charge but when it dies out i wait like 30 seconds an its like nothing happens what can be the cause?
Tue Mar 5 23:48:53 2013: 11934 TonyLawrence
Again, and again and again: I do not know. Read the other comments!!!
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