(ET) Running the tractor off the charger

Hi ET folks,

With all this talk of hybrid ETs and wondering how durable the charger was, well, I finally had to chime in.

The guy I bought my E15 from was toobroke to buy batteries, so he mowed his grass with the E15 charger plugged into an extension cord. That's how he demonstrated the E15. The E15 would run the mower deck and traction motor with the transmission in LL or L gear, and would mow the grass. He told me that he had been mowing his lawn that way for about two years. His lawn was flat and level, and he had a small lawn.

To be clear, his batteries were so dead that off the charger they wouldn't even light the headlights or spin any of the moors an even a low speed.

I thought that he was crazy to own an ET and not replace the batteries, but I immediately developed a healthy respect for the GE supplied charger and it's durability. It wasn't until later when I got hold of copies of the owners and service manuals that I learned that you weren't supposed to run the tractor off the charger.

15+ years later that charger is still going strong with the original diodes and capacitor. I've never had to do more than repair the timer.

Durability wise I would have no hesitation to use the built in charger to charge the batteries off a generator while using the tractor.

Steve Naugler