What Causes Golf Cart Battery Cables to Melt
The battery cables of your golf cart are prone to occasionally melting just like the cables of the batteries in any other vehicle.
The main reason why golf cart battery cables will melt is because of too much current passing through the jumper cable; resulting in overheating and melting.
A poor contact connection or a missing ground strap between the chassis and the engine may also result in the melting of your golf cart battery cables.
Alternatively, corrosion of either of the above two can also be a reason for the battery cables to melt.
A third reason is that the motor of your golf cart has a bad starter. It must be drawing excessive current through the cable or its solenoid must have become short-circuited.
Poor quality of the cables may also be another reason for the melting, because of inferior quality copper plating of cables and low-quality wire connectors.
Why Do Golf Cart Battery Cables/Wires Get Hot
There is more than one reason why you are likely to experience your golf cart battery cables getting hot. I will tell you the main reasons for this and what you can do to fix the problem.
Continue reading as I’m now going to go further indepth to the different reasons why your golf cart battery cables can overheat:
- Bad or loose connections
- Low resistance wires
- Long wires
- Dust in the motor
- Low gauge thickness
- Cable Corrosion
- Short cicruit
Bad or loose connection
Typically, your golf cart will have more than one battery resulting in several cable connections between them and the motor. If you find a particular cable getting hotter than the other cables, check for the connection made with that cable. A bad or loose cable connection can cause it to get hot.
Ensure that the connection is intact and has not come undone or become loose. If this is the case, secure the cable firmly just like how you did when establishing the connection for the first time.
Low resistance
Another reason that your battery wire is getting overheated is its resistance. A low resistance wire tends to heat faster than one with high resistance.
Use a multimeter and check the resistance of the battery wire that you find is quite hot. If you find that it has a low resistance, replace the wire with one that has a higher resistance, ensuring that it is well within limits prescribed for the golf cart.
Long wires
A very long wire indicates that it will take an equally long time for the current to pass through it. This results in the wire getting overheated.
Replace lengthy wires with ones that are as short as possible. Also, make sure that the connection is tight and clean.
Dust accumulation on motor
If the motor of your golf cart is relatively old, then there are chances of carbon dust getting accumulated on both its brushes and interior. This can lessen the motor’s efficiency, thereby causing a strain on the battery cables and heating them.
Get your golf cart’s motor cleaned from time to time and keep it dust-free as far as possible. This will not only ensure the maximum efficiency of the motor but also prevent overheating of the battery cables to an extent.
Low gauge thickness
High current cables with less gauge thickness tend to get heated up if they have a temperature of 10°F more than the ambient temperature.
All high current cables that you use for your golf cart should preferably have a thick gauge so that they are capable of withstanding the heat. When you replace a heated high current cable, you can consider replacing all such cables with at least 4 Gauge thickness.
Corrosion through cable ends
A leaking battery can trigger corrosion in the connected cable and eventually lead to overheating. The corrosion generally starts at the cable end and proceeds along the entire length of the cable.
Check if the battery is leaking and if so, clean it as soon as possible. If needed, you may even consider changing the battery. Replace the corroded cable with a new one.
Short circuit or fused connection
Two cable ends that accidentally happen to touch each other can result in a short circuit or a fused connection.
Remove the shorted cables and use new cables to reestablish the proper connection between the terminals. Ensure that there are no loose connections as this can cause a short circuit.
Your golf cart battery cables must be attended to as soon as you notice them becoming hot. In most cases, the best solution is to replace the faulty cable or wire as soon as possible.
