Testing a hour meter from my Bad Boy Mower

B

Bobster

Member
I started another thread last week about replacing a hour meter on my mower, but before I send the $70 for a new meter, is there anyway to test the old one to make sure I don't have another type of problem. Its a one prong meter. I put a test light up to the wire with the switch on, and did not get anything, so now makes me wonder if it could be something else.
Bob
 
I don't have any specific experience with an hour meter, but in general:

To troubleshoot an electrical situation like this you need to verify if the input to the meter is on/valid, which is sounds like you have. If the wire coming to the meter is live with +12V when the switch is on that seems to be OK. Then test the meter itself by hooking it to a known good +12V source (direct to a battery, for instance) and leave it connected for whatever period of time the meter is capable of registering (0.1 hours?). The meter display should be on and should increase (i.e. by 0.1 hours) after that test. If both tests are successful then I guess I'm not sure what to look at next.
 
The hour/tach on my 54" seems to be intermittent. On for a while and then off. It has only one wire and that goes to the spark plug for the tach.
 
I haven't traced the single wire, but i did see in a diagram that it does go to the spark plug and wraps around the plug wire. I really hope that it was my tachometer since I have ordered a new one.
 
Some hr meters Get a signal from the coil / spark plug wire, that may be the case here. If so, your machine will need to be running for the meter to respond
 
One other thing I thought of... Since it is a 1-wire unit, check the ground that the meter is making with its mount. Even with good +12V if the ground isn't good it isn't going to complete the circuit.
 
Funny thing about this meter is, its all plastic, there is nothing to make a ground with that I can tell anyway.
 
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