New Battery Discharge?

[cv2065]

Hey all. Bought my 2007 EZGO TXT last month, The guy I bought it from refurbishes carts, and he said that he put new batteries in before the sale. They are not Trojans but a brand called 'Golf Pro Gold' batteries. They certainly look new but I can't find them anywhere online, so I'm thinking that they must be some kind of wholesaler battery and probably suck.

I'm doing some upgrades and currently have the batteries out of the cart. I've been keeping them topped off with a battery charger. Question is around the discharge amount. With my charger, I can top off each battery to 100% about every 3 days if I do them one at a time (small charger). Every time I rotate to the next battery, it has depleted to about 84-85% within the 3 day period. Is this typical of a 'new' battery?

Thanks.

[scottyb]

If you do not have one you will need a golf cart charger to properly charge and care for golf cart batteries.

[cv2065]

Originally Posted by scottyb

If you do not have one you will need a golf cart charger to properly charge and care for golf cart batteries.

I do have one, but the batteries are not hooked up to the cart at this point, so have nothing to plug into the recepticle. I should have the new battery tray back in this weekend with the batteries hooked back up in series.

[Gregorio]

Small chargers often do not have the ability to fully charge a deep cycle battery. I would not panic until they show this problem after being charged with the cart charger.

[cv2065]

Originally Posted by Gregorio

Small chargers often do not have the ability to fully charge a deep cycle battery. I would not panic until they show this problem after being charged with the cart charger.

Thanks. I have charged them with my cart charger before. If I didn't run the cart and topped off each evening, the charge might run for 30 minutes before switching off each night.

[yurtle]

Wire them together and place them close to the cart, so you can connect the charge receptacle wires up, and charge them properly. A car charger WON'T do the trick. You should get 6.37 volts each.

[cv2065]

Originally Posted by yurtle

Wire them together and place them close to the cart, so you can connect the charge receptacle wires up, and charge them properly. A car charger WON'T do the trick. You should get 6.37 volts each.

Thanks. Got batteries back in, new receptacle, new battery tray and 4 gauge wires. It's charging now, so we'll see how it goes. The charger that I was using was for 6 volt batteries. It was only 3 amps, so pretty slow, but it eventually got each battery to 100%. I was just curious how each battery would lose 15% of its charge over a 3 day period.

[yurtle]

There's a wives tale that letting them sit on concrete will increase the self-discharge. That was a fact, when their cases were made of wood, covered with tar. However, there are folks who anecdotally say they've observed the same with modern plastic cased batteries. Can't explain it, but there may be some truth to it. See how they do while inside your cart.

Also, a battery voltage can reliably only be measured 12 hours after the charge completed, so you may not have ever reached 100%. Car batteries (cranking) are different beasts than deep cycle batteries.