Vatrer Lithium Battery Upgrade on a 1991 Club Car DS Resistor Golf Cart (Step By Step)

(IMPORTANT GROUND UPDATE BELOW) Here I did a Lithium Battery upgrade on my 36V 1991 Club Car DS resistor (toaster) cart along with my final thoughts on it all. The install will be the same for all DS Resistor Club Cars.

** I have now decided to remove the frame ground on the 12V side of the Voltage Reducer. It runs fine and even though it is the 12V side and not the 36V side, I decided to for added safety and ran the lights negative back to the negative buss. **

I explain some of the things I found along the way as well as a bit of a lesson learned at one point when the sparks fly.

The range will greatly suffer with it being a resistor cart but this shows how, and that it can be done on a resister cart. I will also update here what the range is once I have drove it around enough. An addition of a motor controller to increase the range will probably happen sometime in the future.

Please let me know you thoughts and I'd love to hear how your upgrade went!

UPDATE AFTER A FEW MONTHS!!
Have to say that I love it!!
With it being a resistor cart I am getting about 40% less distance compared to those with a controller, but still worth it. You don't want it to go less than 30% charge so from full to 30% I got about 23km's (14m) in range. With a newer controller style I would expect about 32km (20m). Even at 23km it is far better then what I got from lead acid when they were new.
Now add in that it is maintenance free and it's a no brainer.
The only warning I would give is the temperatures it can work and be stored in. I took mine out to put in a heated space for the winter as it can get to -35c and it says to stay above -10c when storing.

Battery Specs:
Vatrer LiFePO4 38.4V 105AH with BMS
7.68kW Max Power Output
200A continuous discharge current
400A peak (35 seconds)
600A high peak (5 Seconds)



#lithium #golf #DS