I went out to move my 2002 gem today and nothing was on. I installed the ride for fun charger 2 years ago. No power indicated anywhere. After unplugging and replugging, the ride4 fun charger lit up with “0” and the led flashing red and green. The 4 year old deca gels are at .52,.19,2.56,.24,1.13 an…
Is there a question here somewhere?
Possibly this is just a status report?
I have one-
How long has this been since you last used your car?
If I was tasked to guess, A: it has been a while.
A couple weeks?
Maybe a month?
Longer?
Carnac says you probably left the Main Disconnect Switch ON,
This works for some people. Up until there is some sort of charging error and the charger shuts down.
With the MDS->ON, the converter remains active and the controller remains in stand-by. These things slowly consume power. Over time, it kills your PackV.
Carnac also sees your four year old Deka Gels are probably toast. 4 years is actually a pretty good run.
I suppose you could try and resurrect them by boosting them back up with a 12v charger. Take your time This will probably take a week. Do a couple passes on each battery and monitor progress. When done, do a load test and see if the V is real.
Sorry about that - I accidentally posted outside of the GEM forum and then copied (incompletely) here.
You are right about the time since used - actually 5 months . Not sure of the master switch position, but probably on.
I will charge each battery separately and see what happens.
Thanks for your help, greatly appreciated.
I assume No possibility of using the R4F charger. I have 2 decent 12v chargers that i can cycle through.
I have not had hands on R4F charger. I’m guessing that it won’t start that low.
Give them all a hit up to 6v and see if it will kick in.
Key is to get them all very close to being the same in the end.
A balanced pack is a happy pack.
R$F StuperDuperCharger is a bone stock QuickCharge Corp SCO-7200. You can get all the documents at QuickCharge.
I had one at one time. They are probably the best iron core chargers I’ve ever used. Not super bright, but they go like a main battle tank taking a shortcut through a china shop… but i don’t remember if it had a minimum trigger voltage, so @AssyRequired sugguestion about using individual 12v chargers is valid.
Very important that you check the charge profile setting on it. They come set for flooded lead acid batteries. You have gel cells, the SCO-7200 will litterally boil the gel in those batteries and destroy them if you dont change the profile. The procedure is in the manuals at QCC, it will take you all of 90 seconds to go through.
In process of bringing them up individually. The on board charger is correctly set for the gels. Once they are close I will fire up the on board charger. Looks like Karnac was right.Thank you both. You guys are the best.
Cool. Did you verify the programming or did you count on R$4 to set it?
BTW, i just realized i may have listed the model number wrong, I think it may be the SCO-7210.
Either way, if its the SCO-7210, there is no SCO-7200, or the other way around.
I set the charger, and it did fine for about the last 2 years, so should be good to go once I get the individual batteries somewhat charged and close to each other. I will verify the setting as I power it up.
If you set it, then you’re most likely good. If it was set by derp4fun then i would recommend a double check. The selected profile and sub options are stored in NVram, so once set, short of a fluke occurance that wipes it, it should never change.
Just started the individual battery charges. I will let you know how it goes. (My second charger wouldn’t come on with the total discharge state, so I’m working through it with one.)
Use the one charger to get something in them and then switch that battery to your 2nd 12V charger.
This lets you charge 2 at a time after you kicked one up a little. And I’m thinking with batteries that dead, maybe it would be best to charge to 12.0V or more at the lower power level before kicking in the higher power onboard charger.
Charged them individually to 10-11v, then the on board charger kicked in. All but one came up to about 12.5 and the last to 10.6 - dead cell si need a replacement. probably get it and limp through the season if i can rather than going for the . Anyone know of a source on Ling Island or southern CT?
Thanks again to all i
Don’t go away just yet. You should also check them for capacity too.
Use that magnifying glass tool in the upper right of the screen and do a search for Brake Stand Test. Do this and see how fast these batteries fall on their faces.
They can have voltage, but no capacity left.
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I look that up and it is great advice. I will get to it, but it may be a while. No reason to get 1 battery and still have a problem. Thanks
Sometimes an auto parts store will have a battery load tester. But it would probably require you to remove all the batteries and take them into the store to be tested. IIRC you’ll want to put ~100A load on the battery and it should sustain that load for as long as the load tester can remove the heat but maybe a solid minute would be a good indicator and the voltage shouldn’t sag below 11V(?).
Our GEMs can pull 300A on starting but from what I’d seen they drop down to 70A or so on steady roads and ~25-30mph.
I went out to try the brake test and the car would not come on - code 15.
Then I stepped on the brake pedal and it went to the floor. Brake fluid reservoir is empty. I have fairly recent disc brakes on the front, so it is almost certainly the rears that are leaking. At this point I am cutting my losses and giving the car to someone I know with the same one.
Thanks for all your help, it has been a fun little car but I can’t see putting the kind of money in that it will need.
No, wait…
Do you own any guns?
A can of gas?
Have a friend with a bulldozer?
Have access to peroxide?
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@Dennis1
You could give it to me and I could make a parade float out of it.. 
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