If you like to take pride in your garden, having a lawn mower is one of the most important pieces of equipment that you can invest in. This is especially true if you have a large lawn to maintain.
Having a ride-on lawn mower can make the job super easy and is incredibly convenient. However, there are sometimes things that go wrong with machines such as these.
If you find that your lawn mower battery is flat, there are ways that you can charge the battery back to full capacity.
How To Charge A Lawn Mower Battery
If you go to use your lawn mower and find that the battery won’t turn the engine over, the most likely reason is the battery is depleted.
This can be an inconvenience, however, it is easily rectified by simply charging the battery. Below we will look at the different steps required to successfully and safely charge your battery.
Step One: Take Precautions
Whenever you are working with a battery, it is important to take the necessary precautions to ensure that you are safe. This can include wearing protective gear such as leather gloves and goggles to protect your eyes.
This can help protect you from any injuries that may occur as a result of an electrical mishap.
It is also important to understand what your lawn mower actually needs before jumping straight into charging the battery.
If the battery is dead unexpectedly, it is likely that you left the ignition on and that has drained the battery.
However, it can be sensible to check the spark plugs, fuel, oil, and filters of the engine to make sure that they are all working properly first.
Step Two: Choose The Right Charger
Most battery-powered lawn mowers use 12-volt batteries. If you have a particularly old model from before the 80s, it may have a 6-volt battery.
It is important to make sure that you check the voltage of your battery before attaching it to a charger. The charger that you use needs to be appropriate for the voltage of your battery.
Another important thing to check before attaching the battery to a charger is the amps of the charger. The output of the charger should be no more than 10 amps.
A charger that has an output of more than 10 amps runs the risk of damaging your battery.
Step Three: Locate The Battery In Your Mower
Once you have found the right charger for your battery, it is time to locate the battery in your mower. Usually, lawn mower batteries in ride-on lawn mowers are located underneath the seat.
If you lift up the seat on your mower, you will find the battery and its positive and negative terminals. It is important to check the battery over before you begin to charge it.
Mostly, you want to make sure that there is no physical damage to the battery. The most important thing to check for is cracking and leaking from the battery.
Step Four: Connect The Cables
Once you have located the battery and checked that the battery is in good physical condition, it is time to connect the charging cables to the battery terminals.
There are two cables on your charger that you need to connect when charging your battery.
The red cable is for the positive battery terminal and the black cable is for the negative battery terminal. Make sure that you connect the cables to the correct terminals before you begin charging the battery.
Step Five: Let It Charge
Once the battery is correctly connected to the charger it is time to set your charger to the most appropriate setting. Remember that for your 12-volt battery, the amps should be 10 or less.
If you are using a charger with a 10 amps setting, you will be able to fully charge your battery from flat in around an hour. If you are using a charger with a lower amps setting then the charging process can take longer to completely charge from totally flat.
Step Six: Disconnect The Charger
There are some lawn mower chargers that will shut off automatically when the battery is completely charged. Other chargers on the market will have an LED light that turns from red to green when the battery is charged.
Once your charger indicates that the battery is fully charged, it is important to unplug the charger from the outlet and remove the charging cables from the battery.
Try not to leave the battery connected to the charger for much longer than is necessary as this may cause damage to the battery.
If your battery is healthy, you should now have a fully charged battery for your mower.
Troubleshooting Your Battery
Sometimes, you can follow all of the steps above and find that either the battery never charges or that it doesn’t retain its charge as it should. In this case, there is a chance that there is an issue with your battery.
If your battery is old, there is a chance that it has come to the end of its life and will be unable to hold its charge or even be charged successfully.
If the cause of your battery losing its charge is due to the age of the battery, the only reasonable cause of action is to replace the battery with a new one.
If the battery is not old and there are no physical signs of damage to the battery there could be some other fault within the battery that is preventing it from holding a charge.
Again, the battery should be replaced if this is the case.
Final Thoughts
Finding that your lawn mower has a flat battery can be annoying. However, if you follow these steps, you can have a fully charged battery again in as little as an hour.
