I have a pair of 2002 GEMs at work and was given the task of taking care of them.
I have one that won’t charge properly.
It has group 29 Marine Deep Cycle batteries in it and an original Zivan charger – no Micro Update decal on it.
Its been sitting in the garage for a while ( months) plugged in.Battery display read 15%. Drive it 5 minutes and it shuts down due to low battery.
I charged each batt with portable chargers. All read 12 - 12.8v at rest.
BDI read 85%.
Drove it around a bit.( couple miles)…dropped to 50%
Plugged it in overnight, light turned green. BDI reads 15% in the morning.
I’m leaning towards a bad charger.
Should I send in the charger to Zivan for updating or get a Ride 4 fun unit?
I agree. The batteries were likely ruined by being allowed to discharge for an extended period. The Zivan NG1 is a reliable charger. Be sure the charger switch is set to the type of battery being installed. The “micro upgraded” software change should be completed.
I took the batteries ( Interstate Pro ECL group 29 marine deep cycle) to the local Interstate distributor and all 6 are bad.
3 load tested OK on a cheapie tester that I have, 3 failed miserably after charging with portable chargers.
All 6 had at least one bad cell, tested with a hydrometer.
Come springtime, I’ll have to get a set of batts for the Gem.
I think that I’ll also have the charger upgraded to periodically turn itself on and “maintain” the batteries. Something that probably contributed to their demise.
The other Gem has a Ride-4-fun charger and seems to be doing OK.
Group 29 batteries are too small. If your going Marine deep Cycle go size 31. MDC31’s by East Penn give good service and are available from many vendors. I bought my last 3 sets from Oriellys (MDC31)$95 each - also from Sams (Model 29HM) same price
Unfortunately, there are no O’Reilly auto parts in the state of NY, but Penns should not be hard to find under the “Deka” brand.
There is no “Micro Upgraded” decal on the charger ( that I can see).
A vacation timer is a good idea. The car is parked in the Boss’s garage and would be used to get to work ( 5 miles) if it worked.
He has a Volt that he drives as well.
I also have to improve the tires. Currently it rides on 12" utility trailer tires and lacks traction for making it up the hill on his property.
Up grading your charger is a $200 fix and your car will be down for 3-6 weeks if not longer while they do the upgrade.
Going with the R4F charger( or the Clone) $150 cheaper will be a much quicker turn around. I agree with OH a set of the group 31 batts is the right way to go. And this is just my 2c I stay away form cheep batterys. Stick with the Name brand Trojan 30 HXS or the Deka 8G31 Gell batterys. What ever charger you go with make sure it’s adjustablefor the battery chemistry you go with.
That is an understatement. Electronic Conversions estimated 3 weeks and has had my charger for over 10 weeks now with no sign of them even having started working on it.
[quote=Inwo;27306]Have you ever looked inside a Zivan?
It might be that they only upgrade the micro.
If there is a 20 pin or 28 pin chip with a version # on it, it can be easily copied.
Then for those with a working charger, it might be a plug in update.
I would hate to think, they would charge $200, unless they do much more![/quote]
They are the only game in town so they charge whatever the Pilgrims will bare. It’s the American Way. Its no different than popular vendors charging $575 to repair GE controllers which they send off to FSIP for the work.
Yes, they are slow. So slow that all of our GEMs are rigged for off board charging. But, after thirteen years of continuous use, all three Zivans are still working and give good battery life. We have never needed to use the off board charging to run a GEM with the charger out.
Hi I just got my cart and after reading it seems that my charger is bad. I took it out and looked at it and can not see anything wrong with it but It keeps yelling at me every time I plug it in. I also hooked up a external battery charger to it but it did not charge it very well at all. Any suggestions?
