Hey guys so the NG1 charges the car just fine to 100% but I never see the green charged light come on, it just stays red. It does blink red after awhile which If I am not mistaken tells me the batts are charged at 80% and the charger does not appear to shut off.
Here’s the back story. I got the Gem’s car from someone who owed me money in Jan. It looked great but did not run! I put a set of new gel batteries in it. It ran. However it needed a new motor and front drive unit. So I replaced those items I’m now about 4500 bucks in to it and it ran and charged great no issues… I think I used it 3 times up until now. I pretty much kept it charged, however in the last couple of months I had been traveling and let it sit. OOOPS! Once I came back home I realized it was dead. I attempted to charge it no go. I thought there was something wrong with the charger, so I pulled the cover off of it and checked the internal fuse, it was fine. I put the cover back on and learned from this site, that I needed to charge the batteries individually to 68 volts total then plug the charger in. I did this and it worked as expected.
Additionally while searching this site, I realized that the charger needed to be set for Gel type batteries, so I changed that setting as well.
All GEMs use what is known as a “series” charger. This means that the charger supplies the sum voltage to the series “string” of batteries. The simple method works, so long as the electrical properties of all the batteries remain constant. If one or more of the batteries has changed in some way, the charge received at each battery will also change. Usually, a battery has become weak due to old age and either charges very quickly, or will not reach full voltage at all.
In the first example, an old battery has lost much of its plate material and begins to act like a much smaller battery. The charger reaches full voltage sooner than it should, the indicator reads 100, but the GEM loses charge quickly when driven. This is because the majority of the batteries did not charge long enough before the charger shut down.
In the second example, which your GEM is likely experiencing, one or more batteries never reaches full voltage and the charger remains on attempting to complete the charge. Sometimes you will get a green flash with audible alarm which means the charge time was too long. Warm batteries are also a symptom. This can also be caused by one battery connected in reverse. The series string should always connect ±±±±±±.
Next, carefully check each battery and look for one or more with slightly lower voltage. Fully charged batteries should read 12.6 to 12.7 after sitting for two hours. If one reads only 12.4, that one is bad. If this test does not reveal any weak batteries, drive the GEM until it feels sluggish and repeat the test. You are looking for differences between the battery voltages. A weak battery will lose voltage faster than good batteries. It is important not to allow the batteries to completely discharge. Put a “vacation timer” in the charger circuit to turn on the charger once a week so that the batteries will charge. The Zivan NG1 does not automatically cycle.