I’m back in the GEM world and just picked up my first “new generation” 2016 GEM E2 at auction.
It was driven into a pole and had some relays/small parts removed. I bought a 2019 E2 donor cart for parts. From the donor, I swapped in the cluster, missing relays (fuse box + harness relay), and the ignition switch that brought the crashed cart back to life.
Now all accessories work and the cluster shows ~50% charge, but the cart won’t move, and I’m getting this fault code:
520608 31
Does anyone know what this code points to? Also, if it’s the controller, can I swap the controller and motor from the 2019 donor (6.5 kW motor | AGM Distance | 1kW charger) into my cart (5 kW motor | Max lithium | 5kW charger),? The donor ran, but very slowly for some reason.
I can take some photos of the cluster tomorrow when I am back in my office.
So today I had some time, and I moved all the front-end electronics and the motor from the 2019. At this point, I am only running the factory lithium kit and chargers from the 2016. I now have a new issue: it shows battery state of charge is low and the following two errors:
Sort of. It should run. Controller is pretty dumb, following can bus commands from vcm. But 5kw motor has a different temp sensor from the 6.5kw motor. It may prevent running to to temperature out of range.
Battery and chargers are matched to bmc/bms and vcm. So that will not run. You would have been better of just swapping controller. The thermistor may not even read from the dumb controller. IIRC, I’ve swapped controllers without issue.
Great news this morning, I moved the BCM back from the 2016 cart, and we have movement! So far, the only remaining issue is that only 1 charger lights up when connected to 110v. It will not charge from my 240v EV charger.
The email outlines that I’m a 2021 E4 owner (purchased used), I’m 90 miles from a competent dealer and I don’t own a trailer. Since I’m a competent shade tree mechanic who is fearless to fix just about anything, the tools needed Service manual with wiring diagrams, Polaris Wrench and the needed wire attachment) not being available for purchase is exceptionally annoying. If your intent since purchasing the GEM line from Polaris is to annoy the crap out of the current GEM car owner population, congratulations, mission accomplished.
Yes, it can be annoying not to have dealer tools. I am not sure I need wrench for this one as the chargers are made by Zivan. I ordered another charging cable to see if that will resolve this issue.
swapping the Bmc from a non Polaris lithium will most likely end up on your battery blowing up. Bmc controls the charger algorithm and lithium Polaris runs at lower voltage than AGMs so even if the car works doesn’t mean it will charge and -Most importantly- it won’t stop when it’s fully charged
Make sure you are charging it from a EV station you can get a 120v to j1772 charger from Amazon but again The VERY first tithing is to flash that BCM to lithium Polaris if you don’t want something bad to happen
Thank you for the input. I want to clarify a few things.
These parts are original to the cart:
Two Zivan “Super Chargers”
Polaris long-range lithium battery
BCM module
These are the parts I pulled from the donor cart:
Cluster
Ignition switch
Charge cord
Main controller
Other miscellaneous missing pieces
Front cosmetic plastics
At this point, the cart runs and drives normally. All functions appear to work as they should, and there are no error lights on the dash.
My issue is with the original Zivan chargers. When I plug them into the 120V cable, both chargers power up and display A57. They show this even with the batteries and CAN cables disconnected. When the CAN cables are connected, the cluster inside the cart lights up like it should, but the battery still does not charge.
When I plug the cart into my 220V charging station, one charger powers up, but the other shows a blank screen with only three very faint dots.
Aiden suggested the charging cord may be incorrect and could be causing the issue. I ordered a ClipperCreek PCS120 cable, but I’m not fully convinced that it will solve it.
Just to reiterate, all of the charging equipment, batteries, and the BCM are original to this cart.
A57 means no CAN signal, the cars need that signal to start so it’s correct that the error shows when you disconnect the harness and power it directly, (if you use a EV station it won’t even engage as there is no communication between)
the way dual chargers work is not what we all expect, they don’t work together at the same time, they alternate,
