(ET) Ccccold Batteries

["T Humphrey" <thumphrey mynra com>]

OK Where do I start.....

It's cold and so are my batteries. So obviously I have reduced 
range.

I have noticed two things and have some questions also so if my 
thoughts seem distracted it's because they are, please bear with 
me.


I have a Landis controller. I noticed one day when it was a nice 
warm -10 degrees outside (yeah, neg 10, not uncommon in the 
northeast lately) that my range was greatly reduced. I was plowing 
the driveway, then the neighbors driveway, and  STOP, no slowing 
down just STOP. No readings on the gauges, no power to anything. 
Actually I should confess, my wife was doing the plowing, and 
could not tell me what the gauges were doing just before the shut 
down. Anyway after about 6-7 minutes, click, everything came back 
up. I told her to take it back to the garage.

Plugged it in, it immediately started to charge, .....good. I am 
fortunate that I heat my house with a wood boiler, and it is in 
the same garage stall as the ET. So I have a real good reason to 
visit the ET every 4 hours or so. I noticed after about 12 hours 
that the charger had stopped and was now in the "Landis Phase". 
This seemed really bad to me, since when I was using the stock 
timer it would run continuous for what 15-18 hours or so. Has 
anyone timed the timer?

Two days later, she was plowing again. She could not finish our 
own driveway, let alone the neighbors. I figured it was not a full 
charge on the batteries. (Yes David, I will go get a hydrometer). 
So I did two things;

1. I made a jumper wire that I can clip onto the Landis Controller 
to bypass it, which allows it to run constantly until I remove the 
jumper.

2. Figuring in the sub-zero cold this time of year, I reset to 
Landis Controller to come on at 41v.  Thats 2.27 vpc, is this too 
high, should I go higher? I will reset it back to 39 when the 
warmer weather comes. I noticed after a 36 hour constant on charge 
(very slight gassing, almost unnoticable) with the controller set 
at 41v, it is still cycling every 20 minutes or so.

After my 36 hour charge, I was able to plow my driveway and have 
lots of power when I got done. Put it on charge, let the Landis 
charge it, It started cycling after less than 8 hours so I 
bypassed it for the overnight, in case I needed it again in the 
AM.  Then let the Landis take over. Like I said I am in the garage 
at leat every 4 hours, so there's no chance that I will forget to 
remove the bypass.

There is one more possibility that could result in my wifes loss 
of power on the tractor. The pedal is very sluggish on the return 
stroke when it's this cold. If she, I, we, were to stop the 
tractor with the brake, and the pedal didn't return all the way 
off, then the tractor will not restart until it gets "reset to 
zero". I noticed many times, when I was plowing, that I had to 
lift the slider with my toe. Any suggestions, I'm thinking heavier 
spring as this one is pretty weak at the top.


trying to...

Stay Charged!
Hump
I-5 NY