How To Maintain Your Batteries
Maintaining Your Golf Cart Batteries:
What voltage are my batteries?
6 volt, 8 Volt, and 12 volt batteries are all used in various golf cart applications. The easiest way to tell what voltage your batteries are, is count the caps or holes in the top of the battery. In lead acid batteries, each cell is 2 volts, and each cell has a cap or hole. 3 caps is a 6 volt, 4 caps is an 8 volt and 6 caps is a 12 volt. Once you know what voltage of each individual battery, just multiply that voltage by the number of batteries in your cart and you will have the total cart voltage.
How often do I have to put water in my batteries?
It really depends on how much you use your cart, but you should be checking your battery water once per month.
What do I put in my batteries?
Distilled Water. Nothing else! Some folks are saying that tap water is ok, but I don't believe it. Use only distilled water.
How do I know if my batteries need water?
The water must always be covering the plates in the cell. There is a ring in the neck of the cell. That is the upper limit.
How do I put water in the batteries?
Remove the caps from the top of the battery. If the cell needs water, use whatever means you like to fill the battery to just below the ring in the cell neck. There are battery fill bottles available on this website.
When should I add water to the battery?
Always add water to a charged battery. If you fill before you charge, it may overflow when you charge it and make a big mess on your garage floor. If you can see the plates in your battery, fill it just above the plates before you charge it, then top it off after the charge is completed.
What is that powdery stuff growing on my battery posts?
That is corrosion. You need to keep that cleaned off. It will eventually cause the cable to loose contact with the battery and the cart will not run.
Is it important to remove corrosion and keep the cable connections tight?
Very Important! a clean terminal with a tight connection is critical to the efficient and safe operation of your golf cart.
How often should I check my battery cable connections?
Your should check the connections on the top of the batteries each month when you water your batteries. remove any corrosion, replace any damaged cables, and tighten the nuts on the cable terminals.
How do I know if my battery cables are bad?
You can see the corrosion that accumulates on the battery connection, but there is also corrosion going on in the cable under the insulation. The best way to check is to try to bend or flex the cable. Healthy cables will be flexible. Internal corrosion will make the cables very stiff. If the cables are stiff, chances are they are corroded inside and need replacing.
How do I replace my battery cables?
Before you remove any cables from the batteries, draw a diagram and take a picture. It is best to only remove and replace one cable at a time. It is easy to get the connections wrong if you are not real careful. Remove the cable, clean the corrosion off the post and install the new cable by replacing the nut and tightening it up. Replacement battery cables are available in this website. I always increase the cable size from the standard 6 gauge up to 4 gauge when I replace cables. They are not much more expensive and they will usually improve performance a bit.
Does it hurt the batteries to let them run out of water?
It sure does! If you find dry cells in your cart, fill them back up with distilled water to cover the plates and then recharge the batteries. After the charge, top off the water. Use the cart and see how long it runs. run time may increase a bit over time, but you won't see much improvement after few charge cycles. If you have lost significant run time on your batteries, you will have to think about replacing them. Damage to the batteries from letting the cells run dry can not be reversed.
Can't I just replace those 6 volt batteries with 12 volt car batteries?
Run time on your golf cart is directly related to the amount of lead in the batteries. The more lead, the longer the run time. Golf cart batteries are designed to give you the maximum run time. Replacing your golf cart batteries with any other battery or combination of batteries will reduce your run time.
Maintaining Your Golf Cart Batteries:
My charger is overcharging my batteries.
The charge rate is controlled by a control board located inside the charger case. If the charger won't stop charging when the batteries are fully charged, the control board is most likely faulty.
My Charger plug gets hot when I am charging the battery.
This is usually caused by corrosion or bad connections in the charge plug handle. Open it up and inspect the connections. If you see a darkening of the terminals or corrosion, replace the contacts and tighten up the screws Make sure you do not loose the magnet when you open the handle. It has to be in there to activate the switch on the golf cart that prevents it from running when it is being charged.
My Batteries are dead and my charger won't turn on.
The Power Wise charger must read an appropriate voltage from the battery before it will turn on. If the batteries are dead, the charger doesn't know what is connected to, and won't start.
My batteries are completely dead, how do I get the charger to turn on?
You need to charge the batteries individually with an automotive battery charger untio they produce enough voltage for the charger to turn on. You can also use jumper cables to connect you battery pack with another golf cart of the same voltage. The current will pass from the other cart to yours and show the charger enough voltage to turn on.
My batteries are not completley dead, but the charger won't turn on.
The first thing I check is the fuse. If it is ok, then test the diodes.
The fuse is ok, the diodes are ok, and my charger still won't turn on.
If the fuse is good, and the diodes check ok, and the batteries are not dead, the control board is probably faulty.
My charger turns on, but won't show a charge on the meter.
If the charger clicks on but the meter does not show a charge, it may be the meter, but more likely, it is the capacitor. The capacitor is what turns down the charge rate as the batteries reach full charge.
My cords are cracked or frayed, can I fix them?
Sure, just take them out of the case and cut the frayed portion off and re-install the proper terminals, replace the cord in the stress reliefs and re-install the cords in the charger. Replacement cords are available here on the website.
Where do I get parts for my Power Wise charger?
You can find all of the part for your Power Wise charger right here on this website.