This guide overviews voltage reducer installation on 48V Club Car golf cars.  Guide illustrates using a 48V Club Car golf car.  Remember 48V Club Car golf cars use six 8V batteries in series.  Guide is for heavy duty voltage reducers that use six batteries in series: 48V of input reduced to 12V output.  12 volt accessories cannot use one 8V battery its not enough, and two or more 8V batteries in series is way too much.  Yes this is a very complex subject and does require some prior experience in 12VDC systems.

48V to 12V voltage reducers are used for twelve volt accessories such as lights, horn and power port and radio.  A 12V power port can be used to operate a small fan or cell phone charger.  You must use a heavy duty 48V to 12V reducer for radios on a golf car.  Economy reducers, ones that only use two batteries, are not suitable for radios.  The simple explanation is 12V radios are very sensitive to voltage drops.  Economy reducers do not provide constant twelve volts needed by radios.  Heavy duty voltage reducers provide a constant 12V when the car is at rest and whenever you step on the "go" pedal.  If you use an economy reducer your radio will cut out every time you start to move your car.  Simply you must use a heavy duty voltage reducer if you intend to install a radio or MP3/CD player.

The heavy duty reducer looks like the following

Pictured below as viewed from the drivers side of a Club Car golf car.  Lift up and remove the seat cushion.


Batteries are best viewed as an illustration.  Illustrated are batteries numbered one through six.  Battery numbers one through six are used for the heavy duty voltage reducers.

Remember all of your batteries in series makes 48V.  So from the positive terminal on battery number six to the negative terminal of battery number one makes 48V.  This reducer has a variable input range 24V to 48V.  In this instance it takes 48V in and puts out 12V.

A note about 12VDC power and golf cars.  In DC power "hot" refers to the positive terminal, "ground" refers to the negative terminal.  Wires do have color coding but its very inconsistent in golf car parts.  Red usually is hot and black is usually ground.  If you have prior experience with 12VDC wiring on automobiles remember that you never frame ground any accessory on a golf car.  If you do not know what frame ground is thats a good thing.  If you correctly follow this guide nothing will be grounded to the frame so lets forget about frame grounding and move on.  All accessories must be grounded back to the voltage reducer.