Broke my mower, dang!

[Dixie Boosh Wookie]

Dear dudes,

I'm having trouble with my Kobalt electric lawnmower. I was cutting grass yesterday and hit a metal stake in the ground as I was turning it. The blade stopped abruptly. Couldn't get it to start again. I called a few shops and nobody seems to work on electric mowers. At one shop the guy said that I should hit the restart button to see if that helps. He said that I might have to remove a lid or cover to get to it. If that didn't work I could drop it by his shop and he'd have a look at it. Does anyone know if this works? Many thanks in advance.

Get a fossil fueled mower. You'll sleep better at night.

 

[Dixie Boosh Wookie]

Most old timers would walk the yard, prior to mowing, as to retrieve items like log chains, dog stakes, fence posts, bottles, cars, people, barbed wire, trailer hitches and so on.

Always walk my property prior to running any equipment on it. Been doing it for neigh on 45 years. It started as being born and raised on a farm/ranch, and really set in after the young'uns would leave toys in the yard (some rather expensive, by my standards at the time). Now I got gran-young'uns leaving all sorts of who knows whats all over the ranch. I always walk it. Some farm equipment is much more expensive than a mower.

 

[grumpyunk]

A 'stalled' DC motor will pull a lot of juice. It would not surprise me to find a fuse or circuit breaker that got popped when the armature came to a quick stop. Mechanical damage to the internals of the motor may also have occurred.
Have not seen a reply to the request about the blade spinning freely. Just as ICE driven blades, electric likely also are required to have a 'blade brake'. I would check the brake mechanism to determine if it has sprung, and perhaps cut the juice at the same time. Makes sense to me to have a built-in power cut if a blade brake is used. Coming to a quick stop might set off the blade brake...
tom

 

[sailingharry]

No offense but open a mower shop. Charge $50-$100 per hour to diagnose, repair and time to lookup parts. Most ICE stuff it is fairly easy to lookup parts with sites like Jack's and others. Electrix stuff not so easy. Most folks won't pay you what it costs to fix some electric stuff. If you want to fix stuff or do it as a side hustle thats great but we shop guys have reasons.

No, I think you misunderstood me. I had said that there may be other reasons (like, say, replacing a motor is harder than replacing a carburetor), but parts availability and/or cost are not the reason. Even looking up the parts is no harder than looking up ICE (quick, find me a factory replacement carb for my Honda H3011). The motor for that Ryobi was directly on the Ryobi website, the only hard part was sussing out the mower model number from pictures on a for-sale ad. But the skill sets, the effort, the cost to do it, etc are a different issue than "the diagrams don't exist and there is no parts support." It is a sad but true fact that it often cheaper to buy new than to pay to diagnose and repair almost anything. Side example, my neighbor is about $3000 into repairing his malfunctioning generator (with no end in sight) on his power boat, and a new one could be bought and installed for about $6K

 

[RevB]

I don't know what a multimeter is, nor do I have any electrical experience. I was mainly looking for some help on where the reset or restart switch is located. I want to try to see if that would work and if anyone here knew something about it.

I'm still at work and my mower is at home in the garage so I don't have any access to model numbers and such right now. All I remember is that it's a Kobalt electric mower, with two batteries. Yeah I know that's not much help but it's all I have to go on now. Appreciate the concern.

Lesson 1....Do what the respondent asks. Don't go off on some tangent as that just aggravates the guy/gal wanting to help.

 

[bsb ohana]

Dear dudes,

I'm having trouble with my Kobalt electric lawnmower. I was cutting grass yesterday and hit a metal stake in the ground as I was turning it. The blade stopped abruptly. Couldn't get it to start again. I called a few shops and nobody seems to work on electric mowers. At one shop the guy said that I should hit the restart button to see if that helps. He said that I might have to remove a lid or cover to get to it. If that didn't work I could drop it by his shop and he'd have a look at it. Does anyone know if this works? Many thanks in advance.

First thing is see if you can hand turn the blade. Is it jammed or float free? Electrical mowers are so simple there are no parts to replace, nothing much to do, so nothing much to work on. A person who is handy and know how to use multimeter could look at it. It is either a mechanical problem (probably) or an electrical problem. As far as "tree huggers" there is no need in this type of forum to speak in a rude and derogatory manner to anyone. We are all brothers and some sisters trying to mow our lawns and fields and to help each other keep our equipment running. I have gas, diesel and battery equipment. Each has its place, but batteries are the future and electrical equipment gets better every day. I love my redwoods, fruit and nut trees. They give me so much. I am going to go and give them a hug.

 

[slomo]

My son-in-law, v-twin had a mouse nest under the shroud. Engine overheated and is shot!

Been preaching to clean yours, mine and everyone else's cooling fins for a while now. Shame taking about 3 minutes of not reading your engine manual killed a perfectly good engine.

So what do you guys have? Valve issue or what?

 

[guitarman4805]

About the charger and the lights: I may have overlooked the model number of the Kobalt, and I do not know your battery chemistry. As previously stated chargers usually were sold with the end item and were specific to battery type. Lithium batteries have internal BMS electronics to make sure you don't over charge more than 90 % of usable power. This is because the charger senses the open terminal, no load of the suspect batteries and adusts internals to match charge parameters so it will not over charge. During charge cycle, the charger monitors temperature, voltage and current so that when the lights indicate a READY for service you can rest assured the battery has been recharged to close to 100% of capacity. Nicad, NIMH, LeadAcid and other variations of lead acid use a different type of charger. You need to be certain the charger is specific to your type batteries and that the charger is functional. The manual fpr the mower, the manual for the charger will tell you how to safely charge.
One word of caution. Lithium batts output full demand current for cutting grass and suddenly the BMS will shut down the battery because it is at <10% charge. Do Not repeatedly hit RUN; BMS has to draw a little power to re run the sense voltage again to determine battery status. This pulls the 10% down even more and if you continue it will not have enough no load load voltage for the charger to act on and will status the battery as a hard fail. The lights will give you an indication of battery condition. Some one else mentioned the soft start. When you pull the trigger the motor is almost a short circuit and as such demands an extremely hight amount of current except for the BMS monitoring the discharge rate and will limit that current until it is within the RUN spec for load. The Battery Management System is a small computerized integrated circuit wired internally in the battery. It is a great system and works well
with a little care and maintenance. As a aside; you could have a one battery, two battery or a four battery configuration. I am thinking you have the simplest of a single 12 volt battery running a single speed motor turning a single SHARP blade and a putting green quality lawn to maintain. OR YOU COULD HAVE an extension cort that converts 120AC to a DC to run the motor. A model number put into this site will get you on the right track. This is a simple problem and no one has mentioned if you plug it in to the AC wall plug or run it off self contained batteries. Dude, the dang thang is broke. OR you could get POE to help you with the troubleshooting.

https://www.scribd.com/document/241192047/Kobalt-Lawn-Mower-Guide

 

[Alan46]

First thing is see if you can hand turn the blade. Is it jammed or float free? Electrical mowers are so simple there are no parts to replace, nothing much to do, so nothing much to work on. A person who is handy and know how to use multimeter could look at it. It is either a mechanical problem (probably) or an electrical problem. As far as "tree huggers" there is no need in this type of forum to speak in a rude and derogatory manner to anyone. We are all brothers and some sisters trying to mow our lawns and fields and to help each other keep our equipment running. I have gas, diesel and battery equipment. Each has its place, but batteries are the future and electrical equipment gets better every day. I love my redwoods, fruit and nut trees. They give me so much. I am going to go and give them a hug.

Right on brother!
I remember the first tree I hugged, I was going out with this hippie woman and she had a huge barkless eucalyptus
tree in her backyard, that was a really good feeling I will never forget!

 

[callwill]

Most old timers would walk the yard, prior to mowing, as to retrieve items like log chains, dog stakes, fence posts, bottles, cars, people, barbed wire, trailer hitches and so on.

Thats a good thing to do, but not at all helpful at this point in time is it.