I recently purchased an electric golf cart that has six 6-volt batteries in series that I assume results in a 36-volt system. Since I have no clue as to how batteries in series work, can anyone tell me if it’s possible to hook up 12-volt appliances (i.e. stereo) without causing an explosion? Does the voltage increase by 6 for each battery into the series that the electricity proceeds? Have I got batteries everywhere and no way to use them? Should I have bought a gas cart? Or perhaps a walkman?
The one’s I’ve used, at work, are 36vdc. Six-six volt, deep discharge batteries in series.
Peace,
mangeorge
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
Oops, sorry. I didn’t answer the main part of your question. Yes, it can be done safely.
Let me try a schematic.
1 2 3 4 5 6
===+-===+-====-===+-===+-===+-===
Pos. gnd.
===, cable
, battery
+, pos. terminal
-, neg. terminal
Connect the 12v device - to gnd, and + to the + of battery #5. Be sure to use the appropriate fuse and wire size. There may already be some 12v devices on the cart. Just look and see how they did it.
My best advice? Wait for more replies to confirm my suggestions. 
Peace,
mangeorge (Now, let’s see how this looks)
Hmmm. Well, everything looks ok, except that the numbers should be over the batteries, and the pos. should be on the left with the neg. on the right.
Like I said, wait for confirmation. 
mangeorge
In theory you can hook up a 12-volt device across two batteries, as mangeroge said. I’m not sure that’s a good idea though - you’ll drain the two batteris faster than the other 4. When this happens, the remaining 4 batteries try to force current through dead batteries, which is usually a bad thing. Might be OK if the 12V device consumes negligible power compared to the 36v device (i.e. motor).