I am a federal employee (Mechanical Technician) whom is currently working on a GEM CAR that has a blinking green light while charging. The vehicle’s battery drain superquick in less than 10 minutes driving (100% to 25%). I also have a code while driving the cart that reads -90 which isn’t in the service manual. How can this be resolved?
These cars like to be plugged in anytime they are sitting. So after every trip plug it in to extend the battery life. These cars are much harder on batteries than say a golf cart. I am gonna guess the batteries are to far gone. Have you tested them with a hydrometer?
I have never seen a -90 code. The sheets I have do not indicate an error code that high. They go as high as -76.
I thought I had a code sheet here someplace for the charger. All I could find was my chart for the Zivan NG1 charger which is a compatible/similar charger. Here are the codes for it and there is a flashing green light code given…
Hmm . . . Thank you very much LUVMYTJ. I will do a battery load test on them and/or charge them separtely/manually.
Assuming you have flooded batteries, a load test is OK but the health of your batteries is better reflected in using a hydrometer. You can see what is going on in each cell.
Do you have flooded batts?
Ohhh i see. Yes the vehicle has flooded batteries. I put all 6 of them on a multiple trickle charger and going to see the outcome of what happens after 2 days.
I have never seen a controller error code -90. My list of controller error codes is here:
Always plug in whenever power is available. No battery used in the GEM develops a memory. I would like to discover what -90 means and add it to the list above. There are several codes in there that do not appear in the factory manual. A call to Zivan USA / Electric Conversions may be in order.
Often, what happens with batteries is that one or two fail and will not reach the finish voltage. This causes the charger to time out and the batteries will feel warm from being overcharged. The other unlikely possibility is that the batteries are too large for the charger.
With the batteries run down, check the voltage of each with an accurate volt meter. Suspect any battery that is a few tenths of a volt lower than the others. Don’t let some GEM repair service tell you that all six batteries need to be replaced. Unless, of course, all six test bad.
Daniel
How do you verify the selectors position? Do you take the cover off? Mine is just a gray knob with no letters on it that i can see
scratch that… you have to look reallly really close