Pinball Preparedness
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Handy Homestead solar powered golf cart
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Handy Homestead solar powered golf cart
Last year I was needing a new form of transportation around the homestead. I’ve used all just about all the regular options. Four wheelers, tractors, trucks, lawnmowers and golf carts have all been tried here over the last 15 years. They all work but none were great. Most if not all make quite a bit of noise. Some are harder to get in & out of or carry loads with.
Then there’s the ongoing fuel costs. Of all the things I’d tried I kept going back to the golf cart being all around pretty good and silent. The big problem was they tend to get stuck pretty easy and living off grid charging them can be an issue. So I got to doing a little research and found out they have lift kits, knobby tires and this that and the other for golf carts now. Then I saw what people were selling lifted golf carts for and said no way I can’t afford that! So I got to looking at old carts and they were sill several thousand dollars for a plain OLD golf cart.
After hunting craigslist for months I found two for one price that didn’t run. I went and bought them that day. Took the two and made one that worked. Then over the next few months I started making it the way I wanted it. First I ordered a Renogy boost solar charge controller. I had already found out the roof and my solar panels were the same width. So I took the roof off and replaced it with a 300 watt Renogy solar panel. It’s a little longer than the roof was but that’s good for my purposes. Now the cart was charging itself but the batteries were 5 years old and needed replacing. So I did a lot of research and found out about DIY LifePO4 batteries. So I priced the parts and found I could build a 105AH battery good for 3500 cycles or 10 years for slightly less than replacing the lead acid batteries. Both options had the same usable amp hours of storage. So that’s what I did. When I made that change it took over 250 pounds off the cart and opened up 2/3 of the space under the seat. Now I rarely need to plug the cart in as it charges itself when the sun shines. In the 90+ days I’ve had the Li battery in the BMS shows 15 battery cycles. For the most part the battery stays right in the middle zone where Li batteries last the longest. They only count cycles when they go below 20% and above 80% recharging. My battery tends to stay between 40 and 70 percent most of the time unless I joy ride off property.
Then it got all new suspension and a lift kit with larger mud tires. I haven’t had a problem with getting stuck since.
So for the last several months I’ve been using this everyday to get around my 36 acres and it’s been great. Plus I have CHEAP spare 48 volt inverter I can hook to the battery to have limited power anywhere I can get the cart to which comes in handy. No noise No fuel and so far No maintenance ya just gotta love it!
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3 Replies
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Took me a minute to get a pic to post.
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That Rocks! Awesome job
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That is a thing of beauty man.
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