Re: (ET) Ccccold Batteries

[Don Cohen <bond007d netsync net>]

Your pedal MAY be at least part of the problem. You need to remove the 
cover and the plate under it and remove all the old grease (if there is 
any left) and re lube with a very light weight grease (white lithium, 
maybe). The grease gets too gunky (stiff) at cold temps and causes the no 
pedal return (quite dangerous, actually). It may also be causing some of 
the cherry switches to stick in the engaged position. 

As to the batteries, when they are cold, they do need a higher voltage to 
maintain the same overall state-of-charge (temperature compensated 
voltage). The problem is, as far as I know, the ET charger is not voltage 
adjustable. To compensate, just charge longer like you did already. That's 
about all you can do, short of buying a good external charger. Actually, 
it may not be a bad idea for the winter to just use the GE charger and let 
it go through a full cycle or so, especially right before you need to use 
the tractor. That makes a big difference in how much pep the ET has when 
it is cold (or warm, for that matter). Letting the battery acid get to the 
boil point isn't a problem in general. You just need to watch the water 
level and add distilled water when necessary. In fact, if the charger is 
never allowed to stay on long enough to boil (equalize) the batteries for 
a short time (maybe a few hours, or more), then the batteries will all 
never get fully charged (the pack will be unbalanced). Performance will 
continue to drop, and it will appear like the batteries are bad, when they 
really aren't.

Hope this helps,
Don C.



At 02:43 PM 1/20/04 -0500, T Humphrey wrote:
>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 
> 
>
>
> 
>                   
>
>_______________________________________________
>Elec-trak mailing list
>Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
>https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo/elec-trak

Don Cohen
DC Electronics
Shinglehouse, PA