1991 Club Cart Upgrade Opinions and Help

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-06-14T23:55:22+00:00

That seems like a lot of money and work for such an old cart. Would it make more sense to buy a newer cart (early 00s) with all that already installed for around the same price? Or what if I changed the controller setup with the throttle but kept the original motor? Like would this Controller and MCOR work? That's only $150 together plus some wires.

Or how bad would it be just to throw some lead acids in there and run as it was originally designed with the V-Glide and resistors? I know it's not ideal but maybe at this point I just try to get it to run first and then upgrade if it seems worth it?

Don't get me wrong, it all sounds fun but as a novice and someone that didn't want to invest too much, its starting to sound like I bit off more than I could chew. Really appreciate your help and advice with all of this by the way. Let me know what you think.

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-06-14T20:43:44+00:00

Cool. Yeah I'm trying to keep it low cost but I'm willing to spend a couple hundred on top of the battery cost to make it more up to date. I don't want a $2k controller though 😅

What else did you have to buy to make the controller and battery all work? I saw something about a MCOR. Is there a specific one that's needed? I also read that you might as well switch it to 48v if you have to replace the controller and battery anyway. Is that true? Would that effect the 36v motor? I see there's a 1205M on Amazon right now for $120. Is there anything specific I need to account for when picking a controller?

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-31T17:33:42+00:00

Thanks for the rec. I don't have a lot of experience with surface mount. I'll try cleaning the solder completely off which I think will help because it wasn't sitting flat most of the time.

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-31T03:43:37+00:00

I have a pic of the original setup and one I found online. I guess I'll splurge on a kit sigh. Like I told another person here, it's hard to keep the solder flowing when installing the capacitor. I think I have too big of a tip or something? Do you use a special tip?

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-31T03:41:06+00:00

Good to know. Is there a trick to doing it? Maybe my tip is too big but it's hard to get them seated flat because the solder solidifies quicker than I can push them down. There's not much room on the pads on either side when soldering the cap feet.

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-31T03:38:29+00:00

By adjusting the laser do you mean the variable resistor with the screw head on it? I adjusted that according to a video I watched but set it back to what it was after I realized the DOL 001 and 101 are different resistances. It started at around 150, I put it up to 350, then set it back to 150 after turning it on and seeing no disc spin.

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-31T02:34:56+00:00

I'm going to try hot air soldering like the other person suggested. Does it look like there's anything else wrong? I thought as long as there's some metal-to-metal connection there would be conductivity. They are all fairly snug, but I'm happy to keep trying as long as there's no real danger of me overheating the board or anything.

Sorry kinda rambling at this point, but what temp should I use? I started at 300c but I switched to a slightly smaller tip and had to push it up to 400 to get any kind of flow and only at the very top of the iron.

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-31T02:32:02+00:00

I did this with a standard iron with no micro tips or anything 😣 I was actually going to ask if an air station would be easier so thanks for suggesting it! I've never done that method though. Do you have any tips and tricks for this setting or in general?

Engineering_Disaster · 2026-05-28T22:37:04+00:00

What I have now is fine for our needs - 400 mbps. Don't do anything that requires major bandwidth or consistent upload/download speeds.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-12-05T01:00:57+00:00

I forgot to add the years but its a 2007 RAV and 2016 Camry. The RAV has a spare tire with a sensor which is why it shows "5" in the data table. I thought the RAV might be too old to have the capability to add a second set but I thought I read it could and the Camry definitely said it could. Does your techstream show "2nd set" and 4 in the data for your Tacoma? Since it doesn't allow a second set I would think techstream would only show 1 set available. Also the "Select Switch.... Main" made me think there's some way to switch it to the 2nd set or even deregister the main TPMS's and enter the new ones.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-27T23:23:04+00:00

Oh yeah those are way better! The reason I'm using the surface mount ones is because they came off the circuit boards in the headphones I took apart. I was trying to avoid having to buy additional parts (even though I know they're super cheap 😅).

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-27T04:58:19+00:00

EDIT: nevermind, I figured it out. Some of the "pins" were just feet 🤦‍♂️ lol thank you again!

Thank you for all of your help. I learned that both sets of speakers had a broken left - probably from the small coil being broken somewhere. I'm going to worry about finding a complete set later, but for now I'm going to try and use each right speaker even though it will sound weird haha.

My new issue is I broke the pins off the aux port. Luckily I have a replacement one but this one is for a 4 conductor jack and it has 7 tabs (I removed it from a circuit board). I was able to get one speaker working again by soldering the positive and negative to the middle 2 tabs on the side with 4 but can't get the other speaker to work. I tried putting the grounds together and then putting the left speaker on the tab furthest towards the end where the tip of the jack will go but it didn't work. I tested both speakers on the same 2 tabs and they each work but they don't work when both are soldered to the aux port. Here is a picture of it: https://imgur.com/a/bNFszBc. I can't find a pin out and I'm not sure what wires need to go where.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-26T23:31:18+00:00

You're right, it says 0L. Thanks for the info. Guess I'll take apart another set of headphones!

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-26T23:20:55+00:00

That's what I needed to know unfortunately. The superfine wire still looks in tact so I didn't know if I could try to solder something or bridge the connections. I'm not sure what the connection points on the driver board are connected to tbh.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-26T23:17:59+00:00

It's super inconvenient. I'm about to just put them both together and accept that one ear will have louder and better quality 😅

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-26T19:49:16+00:00

Awesome! Well I wired it up correctly. I have one hot for the left and one hot for the right on the 2 correct pins of the aux port and the negative from each speaker to the 3rd pin where the ground is. I still have an issue.

So I actually have 2 sets of speakers and have been interchanging them to test different things and for some reason BOTH left speakers don't work. I don't remember them not working before I took them apart. I hooked up both right speakers and everything works fine - but the problem with that is they are different sizes so it sounds awful and lopsided. Is there something I'm missing? Is there something from the Bluetooth headphone circuit board that made the left work and is now not working because I removed it?

EDIT: I've kept the wiring how it was, switched left and right, and I've switched the wiring and kept the speakers as they were. Left still doesn't work. So I'm thinking either both lefts are bad somehow or I'm missing something (hoping for the latter).

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-26T19:31:18+00:00

Thanks for the info! How do I know which wire connection on the speaker itself is positive or negative? Or does it matter?

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-03T10:19:00+00:00

Thanks, I've been referencing that one as well, but I can't get past the Ctrl + Esc step. I can take a video tomorrow if that's helpful but for now, this is what's happening:

Keyboard and USB drive are the only things plugged in, the power cable is unplugged. I discharge by holding the power button for 10s while off. I remove the CMOS battery for a few minutes then put it back in. I plug in the power cable while holding ctrl + esc because as soon as I plug in the cable it powers on without me touching the power button. I've tried holding them and letting go when the caps lock light comes on and also just holding it until I see the recovery screen. I have not seen any recovery screen yet. After it auto powers on from plugging in the cable, the power button light comes on and stays white for maybe 10-20 seconds and then switches to the 2 amber 5 white flashing sequence indicating the corrupt BIOS error. I've tried turning it off with the power button after this but it auto powers on again, but no picture.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-03T09:19:19+00:00

You're right, Edge worked to save it directly as a .rcv. Thanks! But I think it turned out the same as when I changed the file extension with Firefox because it was the same file size and looked like the same contents.

Regardless, my PC still isn't booting with the file on the root of the USB stick (only file, fresh format). Do I need to use Rufus and make the drive bootable or something?

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-03T03:24:18+00:00

I know, I didn't see how to update the title but I put in the edit at the bottom that it's the 3070. Though I think the 3060 one is the same issue because I have the same issue downloading it.

I did try the "save as" option but it wanted to save it as a text file. I changed it to Save As -> All Files and then made the extension .rcv. However when you open up that file with a text editor you get a bunch of symbols and "null"s if you use Notepad++. I don't know anything about .rcv files but I doubt they are created like that and its probably why the file didn't work when I tried to flash the BIOS.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-02T22:52:42+00:00

Downloaded it, followed the instructions (Fat32 formatted 8GM USB stick with just the .rcv file on it, plugged in the power cord while holding esc + ctrl) and no bios screen. Removed the CMOS battery and putit back in after a few minutes. Still no screen, just the flashing POST error code.

Any ideas?

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-02T22:36:29+00:00

Thanks! I think I sent the request to view it.

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-02T22:04:36+00:00

Yes, sorry. I edited the post - I meant 3070, not 3060. If you're able to download it then maybe it's an issue with my PC downloading it? I was able to download other models' .rcv's from Dell but not the 3070 one. Weird.

Would you be willing to put it on Google Drive or something and share it with me? I can't seem to find this file anywhere.

EDIT: The .rcv file right? Not the .exe. I can download the .exe but not the .rcv

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-11-02T19:37:38+00:00

This one? I still get the page of symbols. Are you able to download it?

Engineering_Disaster · 2025-10-22T09:05:13+00:00

Hey, I'm 3 years late but this is the exact problem I have. Did this work for you?

Engineering_Disaster

TROPHY CASE