Help Recognizing Unexpected Sound

[Fairtax4me]

Originally Posted by RNajarian

Below is a close up of the repair I was talking about. It appears to be two cables coming off the positive which have ring terminals. It feels like there is a bolt connecting the two, wrapped in white plastic tape (not electrical tape).

Could this “repair” be the source of the noise? Does it provide higher resistance that under a load triggers the sound?

It hasn’t got hot enough to burn the tape off yet, so No.
Resistance makes heat, and lots of it. It’s not ideal, but if that repair isn’t too hot to touch after riding around for a little while, then it’s not much of an issue.

Neither the controller or motor on your cart has an audible alarm, so unless you can get a video or sound clip of the noise we really don’t have much to go on.

The motor being too hot to touch and having a burned smell is indicative that you spend too much time at lower speeds. High speed cart motors don’t like that. The amp draw through the motor is much higher at low speed, combined with larger than stock wheels and extra weight on the cart, you have the perfect setup for an armature meltdown. The sound youre hearing could be the motor brushes screaming while they’re trying to spin a motor that’s on the edge of welding itself stuck.

[RNajarian]

Thanks Fairfax, that makes perfect sense.

It’s a little too cold to take the cart now but I will take it out as soon as it warms up a bit. The Cart’s maximum speed is 24mph. I prefer to cruise at a leisurely 12 mph in my neighborhood.

Normally it’s just my boy and me, about 300 pounds. I only seem to notice the sound when taking friends out, total 550 pounds and only after 40 minutes of driving. At that point if I lighten the cart up the sound goes away.

Thanks for your insight.

Rgn

[buckmanmike]

Could you be getting some feed back to the reverse buzzer and its getting a low voltage activation? Unplug buzzer and see if the sound goes away.

[RNajarian]

Originally Posted by buckmanmike

Could you be getting some feed back to the reverse buzzer and its getting a low voltage activation? Unplug buzzer and see if the sound goes away.

That’s an interesting thought. Certainly worth trying. I’ll do it and report back.

Thanks!