GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

18-08-2005, 11:45 PM

wrote in
oups.com:

wrote:
Thank you, and all others that replied to my message. I found that
Batteries Plus is right in town, Houston, TX. I took my batteries in
and the guy tested them saying they're fully charged and were also
good in load testing. I went ahead and bought new batteries anyway
(and left old ones there). Came home and installed them. I finally
finished cutting very tall grass!

Now the problem I find is that I can't recharge. I plugged the
charger into the mower (with new batteries) and plugged in charger
power cord. The charger light doesn't show either red or green. I
doubt it's my charger because my old batteries were fully charged
according to the guy. But I remember if the mower end is unplugged,
the charger red light should light up. Now it doesn't. I'm going to
bring the charger to the shop tomorrow and see if they can test it.

I need to make corrections to my yesterday's posting. Today I called
Batteries Plus and talked to another guy. He pulled my old batteries
out of his storage room and tested again. They were bad. He said
yesterday his associate didn't do the load test right.

That makes more sense.

Another correction. I thought if the charger was unplugged from the
mower but the other end is still on the wall outlet, the red light
should come on. Now I think that's wrong. I got a cordless electric
trimmer that still works. When I unplug the charger from the trimmer,
neither red nor green light is on on the charger.

If you can find the manual for the mower, it should tell you what the
lights mean. If the trimmer is also Craftsman brand from the same time
period, I would guess it would be the same otherwise I would assume that
when everything is plugged in, red means "stop, I'm charging" and green
means "finished charging, ready to go". My cordless Toro trimmer ( ~4
years old) has zero lights and doesn't even have a seperate charging
apparatus (it's built into the trimmer and plugs into a standard block
transformer).

Since I got the trimmer and its charger working, I used that as a
comparison. I measured voltage between the inside of the little hole
of the charger plug (which goes to the trimmer), and the outside
metal. It's 19.56 volt (even though the trimmer is 12 volt per the
manual). If I measure voltage this way on the mower charger, it's 0.
So I think my mower charger is bad. Unfortunately the trimmer charger
can't plug into mower charging port; the latter is a little too big.
Otherwise I would

I guess your charger has a loose/broken connection inside the housing.
Should be pretty simple electronics. Obviously don't fart with it while
it's still plugged into the wall outlet. Charging voltage will be higher
than battery voltage, that's nothing to get excited about.

use the same charger to charge both. Anyway, I don't understand why my
mower batteries and charger went bad at about the same time.

Your battery was 7 years old and if I recall correctly, lead-acid
batteries should be stored fully charged. If your charging system could
not full charge your battery for non-use over last winter, that would
contribute to the battery's premature failure.

For those curious, I bought two Werker batteries for $86. I printed a
10% off coupon from their Web site.

That sounds like a more reasonable price.