Indeed, a golf cart’s blissful performance mainly depends on the proper maintenance of the battery of a golf cart. The charging technique of the golf cart is different from vehicles that run using batteries.
Hence, if you use your golf cart regularly, your golf cart’s battery will be drained and shorten the life. The battery maintenance tasks aren’t just cleaning or watering; instead, you need to do some other tasks.
If you don’t know those, here I give golf cart battery charging tips; hopefully, you will like those.
Golf cart battery care
One of the essential components of a golf cart is the battery. That’s why it demands some extra care. Here are two different ways of caring for a golf cart battery.
1. Check the Water level of the Battery and Refilling If required.
If you want to ensure an extended life of your golf cart battery, you need to ensure proper watering. Proper watering will help you to keep aside battery replacement and premature battery failure. So, let’s see how to do that.
- First, you need to wear gloves that offer an acid-proof facility. Also, take glasses to protect the eye from any possible accident. Another precaution you can take is to put on a long-sleeved cloth.
- Now, you need to ensure there is no power connection with your golf cart. Then, to access the battery, open the compartment of your golf cart, which you will find under the driver’s seat. Typically, the battery caps are made of plastic which can be easily removed by hand.
Note: After removing the caps, you need to set them on a rubber mat or the ground.
- At this stage, you need to see under the caps to examine the inside of the battery. There you may see the plate series which keeps the battery functioning. Now, see what the condition of the fluid level is? Is it on the upper side of the plates? If not, you need to ensure enough fluid to keep the level above the plates.
Note: If your cart is operated by gas, then you can’t see any fluid; hence it isn’t required to pour any.
- Now, take a funnel or any battery refilling system to pour distilled water into the battery. You need to pour water until the fluid reaches the perfect level. One word of caution: Don’t fill up the entire battery. You have better use distilled water because it offers no additional minerals.
- After ensuring the right amount of water into the battery, now your battery becomes ready to get charged. So, attach the battery charger to the cart. While charging the battery, you need to keep the cart motionless. In some cases, your golf cart’s battery may take half a day to become fully charged.
Note: You can use an automatic charger to avoid overcharging.
- After ensuring full charge, you need to unplug the charger. Again, put on the safety gear to ensure no acid is left on the cover of the battery.
- Now, take the distilled water again and pour that gradually until the water reaches about 0.32 cm below the rim.
- Finally, after finishing the above steps, you need to place each cap on each battery. Then, tighten the cap to avoid it coming off while driving on the hilly road.
2. Cleaning off Acid Corrosion
The next care you can take is clean acid corrosion. Let’s see how to do that process.
- Similar to the above process, you need to take proper protection like wearing gloves, long clothes, etc.
- Now, remove all the power connections from the battery to ensure no electricity flow to the battery. After that, you need to ensure all the batteries are in place, so push against the vent caps on the batteries. Note: Ensure all the vent caps are in place to avoid chemicals falling into the battery.
- Then, take baking soda and water and mix those equally. Note: Baking soda is considered a natural cleaner that helps to neutralize the acid. Now, take a container and pour that mixer, and make a paste.
- Now, take a clean cloth and dip that into the baking soda and water mixture and then wipe the cloth over the acid. Alternatively, you can use a toothbrush to apply the mixture and scrub that into the acid.
- At this stage, you need to take a clean cloth and dampen it in lukewarm water. Then clean all the baking soda-coated areas. If you see water again, you need to clean it using another clean cloth.
- Finally, manage a battery anti-corrosive spray and coat the metal connectors and the terminals on the battery cables whenever you clean the battery. Spraying an anti-corrosive spray will make the battery long-lasting. If you have no anti-corrosive spray, then you can use silicone gel or petroleum jelly.
What steps you should take to Ensure Routine Maintenance
- Routine maintenance is essential to ensure the battery’s extended life. You need to check the battery once a month. As your regular maintenance, you need to refill with distilled water. Plus, clean the terminals and examine whether any damage lies in the components. Note: The warmer season demands frequent refilling.
- Now, take the battery and carefully examine it to locate the acid leaks. If you see any distortions and dripping liquid in your battery casing, you need to replace the battery. Moreover, if you discover a crack, you need to seal that using acid-resistant, non-flammable glue.
- Now, you need to examine the frayed cables because they need to be replaced with a new one. So, to remove the nuts, you need to twist those by hand. Note: If you find difficulty while removing the nuts, you need to rotate those using a plier.
- Though a battery may damage over time, you need to test that using a multimeter. If you see a low voltage that indicates the battery needs to be replaced. Note: You can get the voltage status from the battery manual.
When to charge golf cart batteries
The overcharging may cause problems with the golf cart battery. So, to avoid overcharging issues, you can manage any automatic charger.
An automatic charger will turn off the charging when the battery becomes fully charged. Also, you can use the regular charger; for that, you need to set a timer to ensure perfect charging.
So, after ensuring the proper charger, when you charge your golf battery cart. If you can, then charge your golf cart battery every day.
You need to keep in mind that you don’t finish bringing the battery’s charge to a low level. Another suggestion related to the charging is you can charge your golf cart battery for 8 to 10 hours using a golf cart battery charger.
One suggestion from me is to take a dual pro charger. Though it is an automatic charger, you can get maximum charge whenever you connect your battery. I hope it will uplift your battery life and don’t insist you replace it very often.
How to test a golf cart battery charger
Though a charger plays a significant role, you need to test that. Here are the steps of testing a golf cart battery charger.
Firstly, you need to check the battery to see whether the battery gets any power. So, check the charger’s power using a voltmeter.
Hopefully, you know your battery charger’s positive and negative clamps, so connect a voltmeter with those wires. You can know the amps present by seeing the movement of the voltmeter’s needle.
If the needle lies on the left side, it indicates the battery has full power.
Note: A voltmeter can register up to 36 amps of the battery charger.
Now, take the battery charger’s cable and then change the ignition to auxiliary. If you can’t turn that on quickly, you need to check the connection between the battery and charger.
- After that, take the battery charger and see you can listen to the humming sound. Plus, you need to check whether the AC power cord is attached to a working outlet. Now, check if your battery gets the electrical current. If it gets, hopefully, you can hear the humming sound.
- You will find a wiring diagram for your golf cart in the owner’s manual. To run the cart continuously, you need to ensure an uninterrupted power connection from the battery using the battery charger. Now, locate the battery’s terminal and find out the cut wires, frayed wires, and corrosion.
- Now, you need to look for the grounding wire. The grounding wire is basically a single wire connected with the golf cart’s metal frame that lies inside the engine housing. If you find the ground wire is disconnected, the battery won’t charge properly.
- Afterward, locate the service panel; hopefully, you will find it in your golf cart’s back fender. After locating the charger fuse, you need to see whether it is blown or not. If it has blown, your battery won’t charge ideally.
- Finally, you need to open your battery terminal’s caps. Then, if you find brown or gray liquid on there, that indicates the battery demand replacing. Now, check the battery charger whether it is overheated. This is because overheating may cause malfunction. Another important point is the charger needs to be free from debris and grime. It would help if you kept in mind that corrosion may create overheating-related issues.
Final Thought of Golf Cart Battery Charging Tips
Naturally, if you ensure proper caring, you can get a long-time blissful service from your golf cart. Hopefully, you know some excellent tips for caring for a golf cart battery.
I try to enlist all that related information regarding golf cart battery charging tips in this article. Again, I hope that this comprehensive discussion will be a helping hand for you.
However, if you have any further queries, please feel free to ask using the comment section. I will promptly clarify all your queries.
