Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

A buddy has a Craftman mower at a cottage with limited winter access. He had attempted to find a small solar charger to maintain the U1r battery last winter. The unit voltage output was to low and would not work. Last week he purchased a battery charger/maintainr to bring the battery back to life. The last time he was at the cottage there was about 11 volt on the battery. When the maintainer was attached today it went into fault mode, indicating that the battery voltage was to low to charge. A volt meter confirmed 0vdc.

He called to pick my brain for a cheep solution. Did he have jumper cables? NO. How about enough house wiring to make a light duty pair? No. How about flash light batteries. The maintainer manual said the battery being charged needed 4 volt to clear the fault. NO again. Then he said what a man with toys should have, a model railroad transformer. With the 12volt accessory output hooked to the battery for a minute or so the maintainer fault cleared and the battery is charging.

Woot

Them newer smart chargers are a little too smart for themselves sometimes huh. LOL good thing you got him charging again.

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Boggles the mind, why would a charger be designed not to startto charging below 11V? just stupid. Good thing you think outside the box @Spike188 !

Eugen wrote: ↑Sat Jul 02, 2022 9:03 pm Boggles the mind, why would a charger be designed not to startto charging below 11V? just stupid. Good thing you think outside the box @Spike188 !

Agreed.

I’m using a charger that’s probably older than I am. I hope it last a long time yet, I don’t want a smart one.

The instructions said it will will fault and not charge under 4 volt. It is a low current charger so a shorted battery would probably over heat and damage the unit if the protection wasn't built in.

I guessed that we were dealing with a good battery and would be safe if the maintainer could be tricked into starting. From experience, we also knew that the model railroad power-pack had built in short protection making it a safe bet for starting the charge. Using the power pack as a charger is not advised because it would not have a set back when battery reached full charge.

The chargers are designed for stupid people to keep them from damaging the charger or themselves by hooking them up reverse polarity or to a 6 volt battery and over charging it .
For right or wrong they have legislated natural selection out of the scenario( I am not qualified to pass judgement on this ). For good or bad , it is what it is , we who can think for ourselves just have to work around it .