2020 CC Onward HP Controller Box

M

Madthadz

New Member
I’ve had a Club Car Onward HP for a few years now. The cart has been excellent. I drive it once a week. Had driven 18 holes two days prior with no problems. There’s no sounds, clicks reverse beeps or lights whatsoever.
Batteries are in great shape. Just tested them. Tested fuse under the seat as well as key switch.

So I asked local dealer to pick it up. They suspect it’s the controller. I’ve spoke to a few people and they are not aware of Club Car having manufacturer issues with a four year old HP controller.

The repair shop” quoting $2000 just for the controller unit? Seems a bit much. Can anyone speak to this?
And does anyone know if they are any ongoing issues with manufacturer controller for this model?

Thx
 
Sounds pretty steep. What code was showing on the display when the cart was not working? Most functions on the HP run through the VCM, not controller. The controller is a proprietary Curtis 1232SE marked 1532, that should be a pretty robust controller especially with how conservatively Club Car tunes them. I would ask the shop exactly what codes were showing when they scanned the golf cart with the CCDT (the actual code number(s)). If the answer is “huh?” you need to get your cart back before those monkeys screw something up. A controller is often the first part bonehead mechanics like to throw at a cart when nothing is working and they have no troubleshooting skills. They think “oh well everything goes through the controller and nothing works so it must be bad”. WRONG! As stated earlier everything on Club Car HP/LiIon models goes through the VCM, not the controller. If the controller was the problem the VCM should still be working and displaying a fault number on the dash. Also controllers in general need to have all the correct inputs to be happy, if just one parameter is wrong it can shut the whole system down. That’s why you need to really get answers from these shops, if they can’t explain the troubleshooting process on how they arrived at the conclusion that you need a very expensive controller they likely have no clue and just want your money. It’s like math teachers told me in school, “you need to show your work”!
 
Thanks for replying. I’m learning here. But could smell this deal being bad. I’m not spending that with out understanding more. No codes in dash. I’ll ask them again about scanner codes. I don’t think they have one. That is why we are where we are.

Does it make a difference VCM / dash that this is Lead Acid vs Lilon?

Most likely will just pick it up.
 
Madthadz said:
I’ll ask them again about scanner codes. I don’t thing they have one. That is why we are where we are.
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Stop. If they don’t have the scan tool for that cart you need to find a shop that does. Those are pretty much impossible to diagnose without the tool, and I doubt a shop that doesn’t want to buy scan tools is paying for top technicians that would even know where to start for a diagnostic on these. Also I don’t know how they plan on replacing the controller without that tool in the first place, you have to update the software in the controller when you install it.
Madthadz said:
Does it make a difference VCM / dash that this is Lead Acid vs Lilon?
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No, the lead acid HP and lithium ion club cars use the same controller/motor/VCM, I just mentioned lithium so others who come across this thread know it is relevant.
 
Cart is back home. The shop tried to snow ball me in to $2000. Not having it.

I’m looking to get controller rebuilt. Have you ever dealt with? Flight Systems. I hear they can diagnose and repair controller.

My question is will it plug-in play once it has been repaired or will I have to have a scanner to reset to manufacturer programming?
 
Madthadz said:
I’m looking to get controller rebuilt. Have you ever dealt with? Flight Systems. I hear they can diagnose and repair controller.
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Hang on, we have no idea what is wrong with this golf cart what is sending off the controller going to accomplish? You need to figure out why nothing is powering up first.
 
Well. The cart has zero juice. No sound, no clicks nothing. I wrote up info on post thread. I was at a dealer. They claimed they put a new controller in the cart to test and I worked. But I’m just not spending $2000 for a golf cart controller. That was his quote with out labor. I ask for more affordable solution. So here I am.

Fuses next to the controller and fuses next to the battery compartment are good. All wires are tidy. No corrosion anywhere. The motor and the key switch have been tested. The cart is in pristine shape. Just a weird unexpected issue.

If it’s not the controller than I have no clue what else to look for.
 
Madthadz said:
Well. The cart has zero juice. No sound, no clicks nothing. I wrote up info on post thread. I was at a dealer. They claimed they put a new controller in the cart to test and I worked. But I’m just not spending $2000 for a golf cart controller. That was his quote with out labor. I ask for more affordable solution. So here I am.
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Something doesn’t sound right, if they actually went through the trouble of taking out the old controller, putting a new one in, then going back to the old controller there would have been some kind of bill for their trouble, was this a Club Car dealer?
Madthadz said:
Fuses next to the controller and fuses next to the battery compartment are good. All wires are tidy. No corrosion anywhere. The motor and the key switch have been tested. The cart is in pristine shape. Just a weird unexpected issue.

If it’s not the controller than I have no clue what else to look for.
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There were plenty of other components I mentioned in my other posts, which cannot be tested without the CCDT. I thought we didn’t trust the diagnosis, did the shop ever give you an explanation?
 
he said that the cart didn’t have any juice so the scanner would not work. They claim to have put a new controller in to test and I did work. ???
 
Madthadz said:
he said that the cart didn’t have any juice so the scanner would not work. They claim to have put a new controller in to test and I did work. ???
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if you have quoted them correctly .....
they flat out lied to you

if the cart didnt have any juice how did they do anything ?
 
Madthadz said:
he said that the cart didn’t have any juice so the scanner would not work. They claim to have put a new controller in to test and I did work. ???
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You didn’t answer my questions, how are we supposed to help if you aren’t giving the details? Was it a Club Car dealer? How much did they charge you for their trouble?
 
Is there a aftermarket scan tool I could purchase that would put me in the right direction of what’s going on with cart?
 
Madthadz said:
Is there a aftermarket scan tool I could purchase that would put me in the right direction of what’s going on with cart?
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No, only the CCDT. I need to get the wire diagram for the HP FLA, when I get that I’ll look to see if it’s even possible for the controller to keep the lights from working. The shop could be right.
 
Ok I finally got the wire diagram. So for reference the VCM operates on 12 volts, on the lithium ion carts this 12v is supplied directly from the battery BMS. However with lead acid there is no BMS so the only supply of 12v is from the DC-DC converter. And for some reason the DC-DC converter is activated by a relay activated by the controller, so it is in fact possible for a bad controller to disable the entire system. If you want to do any troubleshooting the relay is located next to the controller:
IMG_5362.webp

The small pins are activated by the controller, the larger ones enable the converter. Make sure the orange wire has 48v with the tow switch in run, and the green and light blue wires read 48v with the key on. You could also jumper the large tab orange and blue wires together which should turn on the 12v reducer and give you some functions like lights back. But I think the shop may have known what they were talking about. I am not sure if you would need to reprogram if you went the rebuild route, I would ask the rebuilder if they know.
 
I sent the controller off to get rebuilt. The company called me last week and informed that they could not rebuild the controller as the motherboard had fried. They are sending me a remanufactured unit that they had on hand.

He does have to reprogram it to manufacture cart specific codes. His main concern was making sure he understood what battery type in my cart. Lead acid.

Seems Club Car has been having issues with 2020 controller wiring / design as this was a unit that was in design for lithium battery. Unfortunately I think the lead acid battery and the controller wire set up is not performing well.

Not sure why fuses didn’t catch this! Seems like an expensive fix for something that should have been protected outside the controller.

As you mentioned, the controller with lead acid is taking on electricity that can shut down the cart.

Maybe this is a faulty design. No one seems to know exactly the issue here.

Club Car is not easy to communicate with. Probably like it that way. I gave them zero stars as a reading.

I just hope when I get the replacement unit installed I don’t have another short term problem.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Madthadz said:
Seems Club Car has been having issues with 2020 controller wiring / design as this was a unit that was in design for lithium battery. Unfortunately I think the lead acid battery and the controller wire set up is not performing well.
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After reviewing the wire diagram for your cart I have no idea what Club Car was thinking. It obviously was designed specifically for the lithium battery and then they decided for some reason to try to power that system with lead acid without actually reengineering it. Having the VCM when there’s no lithium battery to talk to makes no sense, why have that intermediary rather than send the inputs directly to the controller? Plus I don’t understand the point of even offering that motor with lead acid, the torque limiter is so aggressive the regular DC carts will pull away from a stop (yes I have drag raced golf carts lol) and the speed is still limited to 19 mph. Doesn’t make sense when you can get Navitas and set the acceleration and speed to whatever you want with your phone or just save the money and get the DC motor.
Madthadz said:
Not sure why fuses didn’t catch this! Seems like an expensive fix for something that should have been protected outside the controller.
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Fuses are not there to keep components from failing, they are there to prevent fires. Fuses do not blow fast enough to protect many of the components inside the controller.
Madthadz said:
As you mentioned, the controller with lead acid is taking on electricity that can shut down the cart.

Maybe this is a faulty design. No one seems to know exactly the issue here.
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The design for the factory lithium/HP FLA carts is not great, I have discussed this in other posts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see club car introduce a totally different system down the road, like how they had the problematic Regen 1 and 2 systems in the 90s which were replaced by the far superior iQ system.

Being as you have an early model of the HP it is likely you had an older firmware version that could have had bad calibrations that led to the failure. It may behove you to ensure the firmware is up to date but unlike Navitas that the end user can update themselves with their cell phone that also requires having a shop use the CCDT dongle to do the update.
 
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