Golf Cart Battery Question

[debzaranti]

Hi All,

Hubby and I want to have our Club Car re-manufactured and are weighing the pros and cons of switching from six 8-volt batteries to eight 6-volt batteries in the hopes of increasing our runtime. Has anybody out there done this and, if so, have you noticed any significant gains in distance you can travel before draining your batts and having to "Flintstone" it home??

Any observations from people who have made the switch would be much appreciated. TV isn't getting any smaller...so we're looking to increase our range. Thanks in advance.

Deb

[golfnut]

8 six volts will get you more range....gn

[ajbrown]

One of my favorite DIY projects was to convert my 2002 CC DS from 6-8v to 8-6v batteries. You have to weigh out the costs compared to the gain and your requirements. Because I did this myself the cost for the gain was minimal.

Here is one thread where I share things I learned:
https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27321

The highlights from that thread are...

A formula I found to use a guideline when estimating range of a battery pack:

I have read the formulas which can help understand range of a battery on other forums which calculate Watt Hours:

Pack Voltage x AMP hours = Watt hours (WH)
I have read that we burn about 200 WH per mile.

Examples with Trojan batteries:
T105 (6v): 48 x 225 = 10800
T890 (8v): 48 x 190 = 9120 (1680 less, ~8 miles)
T875 (8v): 48 x 170 = 8160 (2640 less, ~ 13 miles)
T1275 (12v): 48 x 150 = 7200 (3600 less, ~18 miles)

The there some guy named Peukert , so I say let the rubber hit the road.

Here is my actual test results. I only ran the batteries to about 50% state of charge. Although they could go a bit further, it is not good for them:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af146/ajbrown2007/totv/batterytestBOTH.jpg