Best Golf Cart Mod - DIY Lithium Batteries And Solar Install
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
- We bought an older cart that was in great shape but the batteries left much to be desired. We upgraded the cart to a power system very similar to that which we install in RV's including a small solar system. While this was an expensive upgrade, compared to the cost of a new cart with lithium we are into this for only about 1/4. This cart cost us around 5k total with upgrades. Solar is making about 5 miles per day. This video was partially sponsored by Battle Born Batteries. Thanks for joining us and enjoy.
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We are Tom & Caitlin Morton and we are the Mortons on the Move. We are co-hosts of 'The RVers' TV Show on the Discovery Channel, PBS, and Fun Roads TV. We are the Creators of the 'Go North' series available on Amazon Prime and TH-cam. We've lived full-time in an RV since 2015.
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With the current prices for L A batteries, this type of conversion makes total sense. Actually cheaper i the long run and more convenient. Even without the solar panels.
OMG Dude..
😱 you're wearing Flip-flops 😱
Next project is an Acid Burned Broken Foot ! ! !
Lol yea that prob wasent the smartest. I
Awesome project and video! In my wall tent I've got a couple hundred watts of solar and charge up 3x 12v 100ah cheap AGM series batteries, then use a buck converter to drop the output to a 12v fuse block for all my interior led strip lighting and in case of 110v ac power outage I can run my iceco fridge and compost toilet with that solar bank. I also use cheap amazon battery balancers between the AGMs that I have in series. Those battleborn LiFePOs are a really good deal, I'll probably get 3 of them for my boston whaler's minn kota trolling motor. I had been using those AGM batteries for trolling but the voltage drop and use-to-charge time was not ideal.
I used them on a trolling motor and was blow away by how much more power it had because the reduced voltage drop, they work fantastic!
Battleborns are nice, but so insanely overpriced. I'd rather buy from a US company, but not at 4x the price for basically the same thing from a brand like Li-Time.
Epoch batteries are high quality and have a US based office. And at about 1/2 - 2/3 the price of Battleborn for the same quality if not better. Will Prowse on youtube has torn down a ton of these batteries if you want more info.
I recommend 3M VHB double sided tape for the mounting of solar panels, I think you were planning for future removal and roof cleaning, that’s why you went with the Velcro, soldering connections on moving vibrating vehicles is not recommended, need to allow for vibration and some flexibility not inherent in soldered connections. Would a single 100W 48v panel have worked? I sincerely Love you videos, you have a gift in how you explain what to you are going to do, and as you are doing it !!!! Keep up the great work.
I have two suggestions and if they are bad ideas let me know first off what is up with the 25 wat panels you could of went with a single 72 cell panel for twice the money And had four times the out put with less connections the second thing is adding a small inverter like around 500 watt it's not something you would use every day but if your area loses power it might be enough to keep a small refrigerator going or a CPAP machine going through the night.
Awesome project!! But PSA battle born batteries are like 3x more expensive than literally all their competition. Also the prismatic cells of others are just as safe and more energy dense.
Love your safety shoes😊
😳 lol, yea not osha approved
Definitely looks better when people do 1 big solar panel instead of 4 small.
Very cool project
Great project, Tom! I love following along on all these fun projects you think of 👍
Thanks! This spring we have lots more mods on our truck before we hit the road for adventure so hopefully more to come!
I think that if you would remove whole plastic roof and just buy one bifacial double-glass solar panel matching closely to size of roof, you would get something like 400-600w, you could really ride on solar power, and I think it would look really nice :P
200 W-h per mile is actually very good even for a good modern car. What you lose in bespoke engineering to maximize efficiency in the car, you get back in minimalist weight and lower speeds. A Tesla 3 only manages about 200 W-h per mile and they spent a LOT more on optimizing efficiency than you did. You're doing fine.
When you put it that way it yea it isnt too bad considering what it is, Our Volt runs about 250-300 depending on conditions, but yea thats got hundreds of millions into dev, lol
Yeah, but a model 3 is way heavier, faster, and larger. So it's still pretty bad efficiency for the cart. But it's a cart not travelling near the miles of a car, so not really a big deal IMO. A brushless motor system would really help here. But, not really worth the cost unless you needed to stretch those miles or wanted better throttle tuning.
Thanks. I’d just never heard that terminology. 👍
At first I read "Explode" in your shirt, lmao. Safety first 😁
All you need is a relay hitched up to the plug that is normally closed but when the cart is plugged in turns the power to the motor off that way you can't drive off when you are plugged in
all he NEEDS is to just run his extension cord through the steering wheel before plugging it into the cart... kinda hard to miss that when you are climbing in to take off.
I've been intrigued by those solder/heat shrink connectors. Since you're using them on this project I take it that you like them and have had good luck with them. Is that the case? Keep the good stuff coming guys and maybe we'll see you on the road one of these days.
I have not used those connectors. But, I just put heatshrink on the wires, twist them together lengthwise, solder them, then pull the heatshrink over the connection and heat with a cigarette lighter. Never have any problems with that approach myself.
They have worked great for me, I do think the heat shrink is a little thin and if I wasent wrapping these in additional tape having another section of shrink to go over it would be good, but yea they make a great connection and are super easy
Remember to lift with your back to save your knees! 😂
Golf carts have a constant drain. That's why I put a battery switch on mine
Curious as to the resistor you talked about for the motor controller. I too am swapping a Yamaha G29 cart over to lithium batteries. I actually bought a charger that uses the same cord and so no swapping out of the charge port.
Its called a pre charge and keeps the caps in the controller charged. Just do a search for that and you will find them. Your batteries may or may not need it but it will help the BMS not see voltage spikes and make it last longer.
Love these mods! Where do keep this cart when you're not in FL?
It stays at family nearby. Now I dont need to worry about it being plugged in tho!
Does the solar charger need to be 36 voltage?
Could this be done on an electric car? I realize it wouldn't totally charge the batteries but maybe get a few extra miles on a long trip? I always enjoy your videos.
No reason it cannot, but as an aftermarket it would be very hard, I tried to do it with our Volt, but tapping into the existing battery managment system was really tough and its at 400V. If a manufacturer implemented it tho, yea it would be amazing! The new prius Prime has a solar panel roof option (only 185 watts tho) that can recharge the battery and I think its brilliant.
It could, but the average electric car needs 40kWh per mile, and his cart has 5kWh total… so, the car would need humongous panels, bigger than the roof of the average home to provide a significant charge rate…
So how often do you plug it in and for how long?
So far I have only plugged it in for an hour since this install a month ago, so thats pretty good.
Tom, what do you mean by the “most positive” and “most negative” terminals of the batteries?
in the series configuration we have 4 in series, so the positive and neg in the 48V config.
@@MortonsontheMove I understand the series configuration but what makes one positive or one negative the MOST negative or positive terminal?
@@AlaskaRog Of course each battery has a negative and a positive. For what he's calling "most positive" and "most negative", look at all four batteries in a string (connected in series) with the positive of one battery connected to the negative of the next. The negative end of the series string is the most negative, and the other, positive, end of the string is most positive. Simple as that.
Shorting a lithium battery is actually worse than shorting a lead acid battery.
Most of these drop in type have short protection. But sure bare lithium batteries with no BMS would be not so great to short, neither is lead acid thoigh.
@@chublez I tried to get a bead on how well the internal BMS would handle a short and did not come away comfortable, even after talking with Battleborn. I use a Class T fuse for this reason.
Dramatically so.
Sure, the BMS should be able to mitigate a short, but WOW LFP can produce a massive arc in a short condition thousands of amps on tap, very low internal resistance… extremely dangerous without proper fuse protection.
Did you use that old less sophisticated charger designed for charging wet flooded lead acid batteries orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr a smart well regulated charger specifically designed for charging slightly higher voltage Lithiums with their different charging requirements ?? Even though sure the old charger will provide a charge to the Lithiums (and their BMS provides regulation) I would have used a charger specific for proper full and adequate charging of the Lithiums you chose. To each their own and it can still "work" with the old lead acid charger. In my RV when I changed from Lead Acid to Lithiums I upgraded to a specific matched for Lithium converter/charger, did you do likewise in any RV when you upgraded to Lithium ??
John T BSEE
The charge is mainly from the solar which is set perfectly to the lithium requirements, we completly replaced the primary charge controller onboard as well for the lithium spec, thats shown in the video. It works great and gets them fully charged.
Great thanks for the update !!!@@MortonsontheMove
SO why dont ALL EVs have solar cells?
!
Far too low solar possibilities on the body of the car… max 1kW charge rate, and only 5ish hours of sun per day to charge… it would take a month of charging to replace a few hours of driving…
OMG.. get with it.. EDISON MOTORS.. You have to follow these guys on YT. They have created electric Semi's and have kits for electric pickups and service trucks.
You had me for a minute, I thought you somehow were working with @edisonmotors; !