Cart seems to be running out of juice when batteries are 1/2 full

[chjoak]

Bought a used ClubCar (2015 I think) back in Feb/Mar. A few weeks after getting it we had an incident where it acted as if we had run the battery almost completely down but the low battery indicator never came on. Since then we just made sure to plug it in after each time we used it and never had issues. A few weeks ago I installed a new battery gauge so I would know exactly how much juice was in it. Yesterday afternoon my wife took it out. Gauge showed about 3/4 "full". It started acting funny (moving slowly & a kind of stop/start jerking motion) on the way home and I ended up having to go push them a block or so home because it was crawling. The weird part was that the gauge still showed 1/2 full and I verified that with a voltmeter when we got it back in the garage. My expectation is that the cart should be able to run the battery down much more than half so I assume there is probably a bad component somewhere. Anyone have any ideas?

[Jake_Daddy]

What were the readings you were getting with volt meter? Also is this one of those led gauges with the green and red bars on it? Most here will tell you to get a voltage meter vs. that "fuel tank" style ones so you know exactly how much juice you have the led bar ones are not accurate. If you can duplicate it and do think its a battery issue take the pack voltage and the voltage of all the individual batteries and go from there. Good battery maintenance is not letting the charge drop below 50% as it really diminished the life of the pack, ideally you dont want your pack voltage much below 48.5v.

[Gazoo]

I am a mere mortal compared to the many wizards here on BGW but I'll give it my 0.2 cents.

First you need to read this sticky.

https://www.buggiesgonewild.com/showthread.php?t=81161

The gauge you bought might not serve you as well as one that shows the actual pack voltage.

This chart is in the above link - it may very well explain your issue.

[chjoak]

Off the top of my head, I do not recall the actual reading.

Yes it is the bar gauge. Wasn't aware they weren't accurate but it is better than the old gauge which only came on when you had like 10% life left.

I had gotten advice about checking the batteries a bit more closely. We charged last night and I plan to test this weekend to A) log the voltage readings for the pack & individual as the bars on the gauge decrease and B) see if I can replicate the issue around the same bar level.