Hey everyone, welcome back! About five years ago, I built this solar-powered golf cart, and I’ve been loving it ever since. It’s equipped with two 100W, 12-volt solar panels that have done an amazing job keeping up with my daily chores around the property. For years, I ran it on the original lead-acid batteries, but they’ve finally reached the end of their life. So, I figured this was the perfect chance to upgrade to something better—inexpensive lithium batteries! In this video, I’ll walk you through the upgrade process, share the links to everything I used—like the solar panels, charge controller, and those new lithium batteries—and show you how this switch turned my golf cart into a mobile solar generator with a 120V AC power inverter.
Are Lithium Batteries Better for an Electric Golf Cart?
First, let’s talk about why I made the switch. The cart originally had six lead-acid batteries, and honestly, I didn’t do the best job maintaining them. These weren’t maintenance-free—you have to check the water levels periodically, unscrew the caps, and top them up with distilled water. I slacked on that, and most of them ran bone-dry. I refilled them, but I’d always assumed the acid stayed in there and you just added water. Turns out, that’s not quite right—once they dry out, the acid balance gets messed up. Then winter hit, and as you can see, several of the cases split open because they froze solid. Lesson learned!
The new batteries are a fraction of the weight. Four of them at 22lbs each is 88lbs total, where as the old lead acid batteries needed 6 of them (8 volt batteries instead of 12v) and were 68lbs each for a whopping 408lbs. Thats like two more grown adults always riding around in your golf cart. If you live in hilly terrain like I do, you now how much more effort two additional adults puts on a cart when climbing a hill.
Continue reading Converting My Solar Golf Cart to Inexpensive Lithium Batteries
