**Hi there! Been reading here for a while, but I’m a heavy to this. Recently acquired a gen flatbed, and I want to upgrade to lithium. I have access to a large number of 54 volt lithium battery packs that were made for “stem” brand medical equipment, and was hoping to utilize these in my gem. The packs have (255) 18650s each. I was wondering if INWO, Old Houseboater, King Happy, or someone else might be able to recommend a way to make this happen? I am VERY handy in the shop, as I spend most of my time fabricating.
Please let me know what you think. I will be anxiously waiting to hear back from you guys!
54v is too high or too low to use as is (15s?). 12s x 2 can work.
It’s a huge job building and matching reconfigured modules.
How many ah are the packs? If less than 50ah or so they need parallel connections that are tricky to do safely.
Any battery can be made to work.
you would need at least 10 of these to work well . It would be a very complicated build . IT could be done but will require advanced battery knowledge to make it happen . Also it would mean balancing / monitoring thousands of cells on an ongoing bases . potential for fire would be high . Probably not what you wanted to hear .
I was quite surprised, unhappily, to find out that my 18650 battery packs could NOT be used to power the gem car! However, I am an eternal optimist, so I kept on trying! I finally got my hands on some batteries that WILL WORK!
I have a acquired 15 Deka Dominator 12 volt gel cell batteries! I am putting 6 of them in the gem car, 4 of them in my 48 volt EZ-GO cart, and was wondering what to do with the remaining 5?
I heard that I could maybe out 1 or 2 of them in the gem car as well. If anyone has any info regarding this - please do tell!
Yeah, you can stick an extra 12V battery in the GEM. They love 84v.
Search for “7th battery hack” by @Old_Houseboater.
You’ll also need to install a shunt on one of the controller wires, it’s easy. Talk to Dave @Inwo. In fact, while you are talking to him, get a magic magnet unless you have a programmer. On 84v, even with heavy batteries, most GEMs will do 35-40 easily.
Just connect one in series between the contactor and controller B+. Nothing else needed, except a 12v charger for it.