Hi, I am having trouble and am stumped on this one.
We have the lithium battery pack in a 2018 GEM E6.
The temps got low which is when we started having this problem.
The battery pack voltage is around 53, which is typically plenty of charge to drive around.
- When you turn on the key, it shows no charge, but you can drive it around with full functionality and power for about 60 seconds even though the display shows 0% charge.
- After about 60 seconds, the display reads “bat loTEMP” and there is not enough power to move the cart you can feel the cart trying to move, but the power seems to be cut.
- When you turn it off and wait a few minutes, you can continue this cycle over and over.
- If you plug it in (Zivan Charger) it will indicate charging for about 60 seconds and then switch to the “bat loTEMP” error and not accept a charge.
Originally, I though it was a low temp battery because it was cold out and maybe the internal battery heaters were not working. I waited for a warm day (55 F and sunny) so I knew the battery would be warm. The same exact thing happened with no change. I unhooked both batteries (lithium and small 12v computer battery) hoping the system would reset. There was no change. I then moved it into a heated garage (65 F) for 24 hours and the same thing is still happening. I changed the converter dc-dc sevcon converter in the battery compartment for a spare we have, but that didn’t help either. I unplugged all the connectors, blew them out and reconnected and am still getting the same error. No blown fuses.
We have digital wrench, but are not experts in using all its functions. I erased the error codes, but they just return immediately.
Please help!!!
Is this a factory battery from Gem? or did you install something else?
Are you sure it has battery heaters? (I think this was only a recent addition to new batteries).
Do you know how cold the temps actually got to? The car has been up to 65 for 24 hours, but see if you can feel the battery to see if it may still be cold.
Thanks for the reply, This is the factory lithium battery from GEM. This particular battery pack does have heaters in it and has worked fine in past winters. (One time I took the cover off to see what was inside and there were heaters).
When I brought it in the garage, I used a thermal imaging camera to check the outside temperature of the battery and it was reading around 58 on the shell after the 24 hours. I know this is not the internal temp, but it should have been pretty close after the 24 hours.
Page through digital wrench and see if it tells you the actual reading the temp sensors are reporting.
Since you had the top of the pack removed, can you locate the temp sensors? If not too buried, see if Is there a way you can pull them out and warm them up?
Power up sequence
I am having trouble with your sequence of events/errors. If you clear the errors (through digital wrench), then KeyON, I could see how the errors would return.
I unhooked both batteries (lithium and small 12v computer battery) hoping the system would reset. There was no change.
How long did you unhook both batteries for this reset?
====
Now that the battery is warm-
What happens when you clear the errors, then plug in charger?
The DigiWrench page you show (above) seems it looks like LoTemp might be cleared and now LowVolt is mostly what it is upset about.
Gem did issue a Service Bulletin going over issues that Low Temps present
A few updates. We are in Chattanooga so temps are now around 40 during the day and 20’s at night.
I hooked up our digital wrench software to see if I could get some readings. We have an identical cart to the one I am working on. This morning on the working cart, the digital wrench was reading a battery temperature of 69.8 f. This cart is working properly and the battery heaters are working because it was only about 25 degrees out.
We have another similar cart, but a year 2022 that was giving a “bat loTEMP” so I hooked it up and the battery on that one was reading a temp of 28.4 f, so the heaters were not working for some reason (but that is another thing. I haven’t messed with that cart at all.)
I then hooked up the digital wrench to the broken cart and the the temp was pegged at -40 f. It was definatly not -40 degrees out. It stayed at -40 f for the several hours I was working on it in. This leads me to believe it could be one of these problems. 1.The thermistor or temperature sensor is either grounded out or faulty. 2. The sensor is stuck in open circuit caused by a broken wire or faulty sensor. 3. Whichever wire feeds the temperature signal to the computer is broken or grounded.
I could not find anything that looks like a temperature sensor. to follow the wires or test the resistance as I warmed it up.
I’m still stuck. Tomorrow, I will just start wiggling wires and searching for a temperature sensor.
I have included pictures of the digital wrench readings for the different carts. There are also pictures of the internals of the lithium battery. I could not find anything that looks like a temperature sensor.
