Dead Batteries happen. Usually, it’s a result of leaving your golf car in the garage for a couple of months during the winter and forgetting to charge it. Sometimes, it’s a matter of the water level of the battery dropping too low and it just won’t start the charger.
Whatever the reason, this post will help you in reviving your golf car batteries by charging them individually.
There are several options when it comes to individually charging your golf car batteries. You can use your existing automobile and car battery with some jumper cables, or you can use a 6V/12V Car Battery Charger.
The rest of this article will take you through how to charge your golf car batteries individually but assumes that the water level in your flooded batteries is already at the correct level. If you’d like to learn how often you need to water your golf cart batteries, you can check out my article How Often Should You Add Water to Golf Cart Batteries?
Jumper Cables and Car Battery Method
Probably the least expensive method to individually charge your golf cart batteries is to use your car and a set of jumper cables. How you hook this up will depend on what type of golf car batteries you have installed.
These are some inexpensive but highly rated jumper cables on Amazon (and they even come with a carry bag. Energizer Jumper Cables (Amazon)
6-volt batteries (36 Volt System)
If you have a 36V electric golf car, you likely have 6 x 6-Volt batteries. Because your automobile battery is a 12V battery, you’ll be charging two golf car batteries (cabled in series) at a time. The image gallery below shows some common 36V battery configurations.
It is recommended that you disconnect the battery cables running from the battery to the electronics as indicated in the diagrams below.
Once you disconnect the battery cables from the control circuitry you can leave the remaining batteries cabled together and prepare to connect your jumper cables.
Energizer Jumper Cables (Amazon)
As I mentioned earlier for a 36V golf car with 6 x 6-volt batteries, you’ll need to charge two batteries at a time. Your golf car batteries should already be cabled in-series, but to be sure look to see that they are cabled from the negative post from one battery to the positive post of the second battery. Check the illustration below for an example.
Jumper connection (36V)
I typically connect the jumper clamps to the dead battery posts first, then in this case, you want to connect the other end of your jumper cables to your car battery posts. You may want to start your car before connecting the posts, so your battery doesn’t run too low on your car.
*** CAUTION *** DO NOT ALLOW THE ALLIGATOR CLAMPS OF THE JUMPER CABLES TO TOUCH EACH OTHER OR COMPLETE A CIRCUIT.
The 6V batteries should be allowed to charge up to 50% (~ 6.02 volts / battery). You can check the battery voltage using a voltmeter on the 200V DC setting.
Once your two batteries reach about 6 volts, disconnect the jumpers from your automobile and the two golf car batteries and move on to the second set of two batteries. Repeat the process until all three sets (of 2 batteries) are charged up to ~ 6 volts.
Reconnect all the golf car battery cables and plug in your golf car charger. After a few seconds your golf car charger should turn on and begin charging your batteries.
8-volt batteries (48V System)
I often get the question about individually charging 8-volt batteries. The question comes up because most automotive battery chargers are only capable of putting out 6-volts or 12-volts and using your car battery puts out 12-volts. Obviously, 8-volts is not 6 or 12-volts.
Energizer Jumper Cables (Amazon)
Anecdotally, I know that setting a 12-volt battery or battery charger on an individual 8-volt battery will work, but I wasn’t sure it this would harm the 8-volt battery, or if there was a better method, so I reached out to Trojan Battery technical support to speak with one of their engineers for a definitive answer.
According to Trojan Battery’s engineer it is perfectly fine to connect a 12-volt battery charger to an 8-volt battery in order to revive it as long as a few precautions were observed.
When “boosting” an 8-volt battery with a 12-volt battery or 12-volt battery charger, be sure that the 8-volt battery voltage does not exceed 2.70 volts/cell or 10.8 volts/battery. At that voltage the 8-volt battery is essentially at an equalization voltage.
This means that as long as you monitor the battery voltage and it doesn’t exceed the equalization voltage of the battery, you won’t damage the battery by reviving it this way.
Personally, I’d use this method to charge an 8-volt battery to a 50% charge, which is approximately 8.07 volts, then once all the batteries were at that level, reconnect the golf cart battery charger and finish charging it with the proper voltage.
12-volt battery (48 Volt System)
If you have a golf cart that uses 12-volt batteries, the process of reviving them is essentially the same. A 12V car battery can be directly connected to an individual 12V golf car battery.
Energizer Jumper Cables (Amazon)
Again, be sure to disconnect the cables going from the solenoid and controller before “jumping” the battery so no inadvertent spikes while charging take out any other components of your electrical system or fuses.
6-Volt / 12-Volt Car Battery Charger
If using jumper cables and your car battery seems a bit more complicated or risky, a high-quality automotive battery charger will also work well. The NOCO genius chargers are highly rated, and we’ve recommended them at our service department. They aren’t very expensive either.
The NOCO Genius10 provides 10Amps which should speed up the process (compared to a 2amp or 5amp) of reviving your batteries. NOCO Genius10 (Amazon)
The process is essentially the same as using jumper cables, with the exception that the NOCO Genius10 (Amazon) allows you to select between 6V or 12V, so you can choose to either charge your 6V batteries individually or two at a time.
I hope this article was helpful in clearing up how to individually charge your golf car batteries.
