Where This Guide Comes From
This article is built around one real-world test: Bootstrap Revival bought a battered EZGO TXT 36V golf cart sight unseen off Facebook Marketplace, rebuilt what needed rebuilding, dropped in a CHINS lithium battery from Amazon, and then drove it until the pack ran flat — all on camera. The video, Range Testing a CHINS Lithium Golf Cart Battery — PS It’s Cheap!, has more than 232,000 views, and it answers the question most owners actually ask: what really happens when you swap six lead-acid batteries for one lithium pack? Watch the original here:
Why a Lithium Swap Changes Everything
The cart in the video was rough: it was two different carts welded together, the frame support was gone, the windshield was cracked, the battery tray had rotted and was growing mold, and the DC motor controller was burned out. After replacing the controller with an aftermarket plug-and-play unit, the remaining question was the battery. The old setup ran six lead-acid batteries — and everyone with an opinion told the builder the same thing: stop feeding lead-acid, go lithium.
That advice is not just about weight. Lead-acid batteries lose usable capacity as they discharge, and letting one hit zero often kills it outright. A lithium battery with a battery management system (BMS) discharges deeper, recovers from a full discharge, charges faster, and holds its voltage flat until it is genuinely empty. For a golf cart that gets used hard and recharged often, those differences add up to real money over the life of the cart.
The Battery Itself: 76 Pounds That Replace Six
The battery tested is a CHINS 100Ah lithium pack for 36V golf carts, bought new on Amazon for about $1,050 shipped. It weighs 76 pounds. The six lead-acid batteries it replaces weighed between 60 and 65 pounds each — roughly 370 pounds of battery. Dropping that much weight changed how the cart handled, and the suspension leveled right out once the old batteries were out.
Lithium also charges faster than lead-acid, and it discharges deeper: you can take a lithium pack down to zero and it will come back up, where a lead-acid that hits zero sometimes never recovers, and when it does it is not back to 100 percent. The discharge curve is different too. A lead-acid battery sags in voltage as it empties; a lithium battery holds roughly the same voltage until it is empty and then drops off quickly. For a cart, that means consistent speed and power from full to nearly flat instead of a slow fade.
BMS Is Non-Negotiable
The CHINS pack in the video is the new version with a built-in BMS and Bluetooth, monitored from an Android or iOS app. That BMS is the safety system and the reason a lithium conversion is safe at all: it balances the cells, provides overload protection, and a good one provides thermal protection that cuts the battery off if it gets too hot — or too cold. That matters more than most buyers realize. Below freezing — 32°F / 0°C — you cannot safely charge a lithium battery, and the BMS is what stops you from doing it.
The builder is blunt about what can go wrong without one: an earlier lithium battery he fitted to his Harley-Davidson had no BMS, shorted out under the load of a high-compression starter, and caught fire inside the motorcycle. With a BMS, that overload would have cut the circuit before it got there. Lithium cells are inherently a little more volatile than lead-acid if they are charged incorrectly, balanced incorrectly, stored badly, or punctured — which is exactly why the BMS and a bit of installation care matter.
Charging: Lithium Needs a Lithium Charger
A lithium battery cannot simply reuse a lead-acid charger with a different plug. The voltage profile and the BMS communication are different, and charging lithium with the wrong profile is one of the fastest ways to damage cells. In the video, the builder ordered a dedicated lithium charger — a NoCo GCP1 — along with a custom charge port that mounts over the cart’s original charging socket. The result is a clean setup: run an extension cord to the cart and plug in, no adapter gymnastics.
That plug-and-play charge port is a genuinely useful upgrade for anyone converting a cart. The original port on the test cart was broken anyway, and the replacement turned charging into a one-plug operation, including keeping the battery topped up over the winter months when the cart sits.
The Range Test: How Far It Actually Goes
Here is the data that makes the video worth watching. The builder charged the pack fully, reset the regen to zero, kept everything else at factory settings, and drove. The course was not a flat golf course: it included hills, a mountain road climb, and a shuttle hitchhiker, with the pedal to the floor most of the time.
After the first leg — about 2 miles up a mountain grade — the battery showed 5 percent used, 99 amp-hours left out of 100. At 8.8 miles he still had 83 percent. At 12.5 miles, 75 percent. At 16 miles, 69 percent. Projecting from that curve puts the realistic range at 45–50+ miles on one full charge, on hilly terrain, at full throttle, carrying two people. Even the builder was surprised: he had vastly underestimated the battery and admitted it on camera.
What the App Tells You While You Ride
The Bluetooth app is the part that changes how you manage the battery day to day. During the test, the builder checked the pack temperature, the BMS temperature, and the amp-hour state from his phone without opening the battery compartment. Neither the battery nor the BMS was overheating even with sustained full-throttle hill climbing — the exact scenario that exposes a weak pack.
The app itself is not highly rated yet, likely because it is new, but it was functional and showed the data that mattered: state of charge, amp-hours, and cell behavior. For an owner who wants to know whether their pack is healthy, that visibility beats guessing from a voltage reading.
Installation Notes and Safety Habits
The installation in the video is a good model for most conversions. The builder cut up the back seat and reused the thick plastic base to fabricate new battery trays — no new parts needed, just careful cutting. One tray carries the single lithium pack, and the battery is strapped down so it cannot shift. Inside the cart body, the risk of puncture is low, but the battery is secured anyway so nothing rattles or rubs.
The wiring was also refreshed while the cart was apart: new cables, the fried and corroded wires removed, and the burned charge port replaced. If you are converting an older cart, this is the moment to do the same — a lithium pack is only as reliable as the cabling and connections around it. The aftermarket controller was a direct plug-and-play swap with a harness adapter, which saved the builder from buying an expensive factory unit.
Is a Budget Lithium Battery Worth It?
Priced at about $1,050, the CHINS pack costs more up front than a set of lead-acid batteries. But the video’s own numbers make the trade: more than double the range of a typical lead-acid cart, a third of the weight, faster charging, and no battery replacement every couple of seasons. The owner’s update posted since the video says the battery is still running strong with no issues, and the listing has since dropped in price and now includes a charger and control panel.
Warranty and support are the honest caveat. Budget brands like CHINS have a mixed reputation for warranty claims, and a few owners report failures just past the one-year mark. The counterweight is the experience of many other owners in the comments — including one running a 24V 150Ah CHINS off-grid, 24/7/365 for two years. Do the same homework you would do for any battery: read the warranty terms, check how long the seller has been around, and size the pack for your real duty cycle.
If a tested, warrantied pack matters more to you than saving the first $200, an OEM-grade LiFePO4 golf cart battery is the safer buy — and that is what we build at Dajiu Energy: drop-in replacement packs for EZGO, Club Car and Yamaha carts, plus the cells, BMS and cabling if you prefer to assemble the system yourself. Browse our other buying guides for the sizing math before you order.
And if you are not hunting for a consumer brand but need the battery itself — a custom LiFePO4 pack at a specific voltage and capacity, an OEM or ODM project, or wholesale supply for your own battery line — that is what we do. Dajiu Energy is a Chinese manufacturer building LiFePO4 batteries for RVs, homes, golf carts and portable applications since 2017. Our product range covers LiFePO4 drop-in replacement batteries, EV and golf cart batteries, wall-mounted home storage, portable power stations, commercial energy storage and battery swap cabinets — explore the full lineup in our product center, or browse more buying guides. Tell us your voltage, capacity and size, and we’ll engineer the pack to hit it.
What Viewers Are Asking (Top Comments on the Video)
These are the most useful of the video’s top comments, with the creator’s own replies quoted where he answered, and our take where he did not. Thanks-only comments were left out; these are the ones with actual information for anyone converting a cart.
Source video: Bootstrap Revival — "Range Testing a CHINS Lithium Golf Cart Battery - PS Its Cheap!" (youtube.com/watch?v=ofGyOrAWhMg). Comment excerpts are quoted verbatim from the video’s top comments; creator replies are marked as the creator’s reply. Range figures, weights and prices are transcribed from the video.