Electric 36v cart. I have a dc dc power converter. I am pretty sure this light needs to be hooked up via the converter, but I have zero clue as to how to do that. Any ideas? Is it hard? I hooked it up directly for a couple minutes and the switch got hot. Help please.
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36v carts usually have (3) 12v batteries in series. Easy way is to just tap the positive and negative from one battery. That will run your light just fine. -
Yeah but it's harder on that one battery. The converter draws equally from all 6Comment
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Actually they have 6/ 6 volt batteries. And yes, it's hard on them when you isolate 2 of them to draw from.Originally posted by SuperDave View PostComment
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Add a 12 volt battery to run your lights on all by itself. Or if you have the 36 to 12 volt converter use it.Comment
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The converter should have a positive and a negative for both the input as well as the output. Wire up the positive and negative input of the converter to the batteries so that it has the full 36 volts going to it. Then wire the LED light bar to the converter.Comment
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The draw to the one battery is negligible and the rest of the batteries will balance it out.
If you want to balance out the load to all of the batteries, you can wire up to draw from the batteries in a series parallel circuit so they all share the load. I personally would go that route over using a 36-12V converter. The cheaper converters use a resistive load that wastes energy on the form of heat. On something like a cart, you need to retain as much energy from the batteries as possible.
As for the switch getting hot, you need to have a relay for the light. The switch it probably not rated to handle the current that the light draws.
my $0.02Comment
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If that light bar is drawing enough amps to cause the switch to get hot I would not call the current draw negligible when hooked to only 2 batteries.Comment
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Full length LED light bars draw around 17A. That is why the switch is getting hot. Hence the relay suggestion.Originally posted by BowSlayer View Post
(edit) The current draw is significant. Adding anything to a battery circuit is. All that I was trying to get across is draw of the light connected to 2 batteries (on the overall circuit) will be less than the light connected to the converter to the batteries (on the overall circuit). Either way he is putting a hurt on the batteries. Whether its two of them, or six of them. The series/parallel suggestion is the best of both worlds. Draw on all of the batteries, without the energy waste of the converter.
Last edited by SuperDave; 11-06-2014, 08:34 PM.Comment
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17 amps drawing on 2 isolated batteries is not good. I know full well why the switch is getting hot. I was just stating that 17 amps is not "negligible" when you're talking about isolating 2 batteries from a 6 battery system. If I were going to do that I would at the very least rotate which 2 batteries I was drawing from every couple of months.Originally posted by SuperDave View PostComment
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Need help connecting my led lightbar on a golf cart
Did your converter not come with a wiring diagram?
And your led light bar should have come with a relay harness and wiring instructions.Comment
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I think I got it figured out. The switch got hot cause I had it hooked up to run on all 6 batteries. I do have a converter which I am going to use but need some wire connectors I'll get tomorrow. But it sounds like the converter may not be the best route. It will have to do for now. When I replace the cart batteries, I may try to switch up a lot of things on here and get me two dedicated batteries to run all my accessories. For now they run off the 6 6v batteries. I bought the light bar from our new sponsor btw. So hopefully all is good on that endComment
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