Electric Lawn Mower - Troubleshooting

I took a gamble today and purchased an almost new but known-nonfunctional electric mower. It's a B&D rebranded as Sears. The seller asserted that it simply died one of the first times he used it, and he never bothered to get it fixed. He told me there was no hum, no motor strain - just no indication of anything.

So if I can troubleshoot this guy, I'll save quite a few bucks, and if not, I haven't lost a fortune. Sure enough the unit appears to be stone dead. I dissembled the switch assembly, and noticed one of the AC wires going in, and three coming out - red, black, and white. Sticking my vom between the red and black gave about 60 volts when the switch was actuated.

Does anyone know the principle of operation of a mower motor? Is it capacitative start? Is one of the three leads from the switch intended to provide the reversal/rapid-shut-down circuitry?

Any diagnostic advice would be welcome.

Art Temporary usercode - to be deleted when spam starts. Use MyBrainHurts at this ISP to reach me

Reply to
Arthur Shapiro
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This is Turtle.

Without a wiring Diagram. I think your going to have trouble tring to trouble shoot this mower. Here is something to try.

1) it is a sears mower so go down to Sears in your area and have them look up the Model and serial number of your mower and see when it was bought from them. If it was less than 2 years old it is still under warranty and have them fix it for nothing. If it's not under warranty get them to give you a wiring diagram for it. They have all that stuff at their warrenty department to look up. They have it but you need to just push a little to get it from them. Then take the wire diagram and start trouble shooting.

2) Sell it on E-Bay.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

A good starting point would likely be

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a ratchet wrench, and a screwdriver or two. I don't think they will have wiring diagrams, but the exploded views of the equipment tend to be enough to get the mower apart and back together again.

I have a mower that needed brushes replaced and was able to figure out pretty much everything I needed with that combination. I was perhaps in a better situation than you, because I had a few years of seeing this mower actually work and noticed the slow death before the brush replacement.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Gerdts

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