I have a gas powered golf cart that is seldom used and the starting battery is usualy dead. I would like to install a receptacle on the side of the cart with wires going to the battery so I can plug in a trickle charger and will not have to lift the seat and hook up various leads. If I can keep the trickle charger plugged in then the battery should stay charged. Do y`all think this is practical? What size wire should I use? TIA Herb
Look into a "battery tender," sounds like what you need there.
nate
Sure. Use the same size wire as the trickle charger. Use a polarized plug so you cannot cross the positive and negative..
Sure. I did it with a garden tractor so I could plug in a sprayer....body is ground so I just ran a wire from battery + to receptacle, body to other side of receptacle.
Look at the wires from the trickle charger that would normally hook to battery...that size is fine. Probably #16, maybe even #18.
Are you planning on leaving the trickle charger on the cart, or do you want to plug the output of the trickle charger onto a receptacle on the cart?
If the second one is what you're after, then there are all kinds of possibilities, but I would stay away from standard home outlet receptacles.
Powercon or XLR connectors would both be available at audio supply places. Another simple alternative would be an IEC C18 receptacle, although you'd probably have to go to an electronics place for that.
Chris
Trickle charger. Easy to do. 16 ga wire is fine.
DO NO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE THE TYPICAL HOUSEHOLD SOCKET OR PLUG IN YOUR WIRING.!
You'll find everything you need at a local NAPA or whatever auto parts store. Spring for short rolls of 16 GA stranded wire in red and black. Red positive, black negative., to keep your wiring simple. Get a polarized plug and socket so you don't accidently screw up polarity on your connections. There are literally dozens of various styles of low voltage DC stuff out there that will handle the 2 amps or so a trickle charger will putut. Let an auto parts person at a real auto parts store (*not Walmart or its equivalent*) fix you up.
I would go with a marine grade cigarette lighter socket. That way you can use regular auto battery tenders or even solar panels.
I did that with my motorcycle. I used a two pin connector on the charger end for which I had more than one matching half. So I may end up putting similar wires on something else later, and be able to easily move the battery charger from one to another.
When I had a 6-volt car, it need a totally full charge to start when it was really cold, so I put a small charger in the engine compartment an ddangled the cord out through the grill. I plugged my car into an extension cord whenever I was home. Worked fine all winter, except New Years Eve when it was zero degrees. The tow truck couldn't start it either that night.
BTW, I cut my connectors out of old televisions etc.
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