Thread: Improving Ride-on mower lights

Hello All,

I would like to explore the options of upgrading the lights on my 20.0 Horsepower MTD ride-on mower fitted with a Briggs and Stratton Intek V-twin motor. A while ago, the mower's gear belt slipped off at the furthest end of my paddock to the shed. Because the mower would not move under its own power, this meant I had to tow the mower back to the shed with my tractor. In the process the slasher's jockey wheel impacted with the grille of my ride-on mower due to a change in gradient. Subsequently, the right-hand side ride-on mower light got wiped out. So, I am down to one light.

I can either go to a local ride-on mower wrecker to get a second-hand light, or I can take it as an opportunity to upgrade the lights. In summer, I usually hold off starting to mow my acreage until around 3:00 pm. Just to be able to work when the heat of the day hopefully starts to cool off a bit. Frequently, this invariably means the last part of the mowing gets done in the dark. The original headlights were sort of - kind of .... well barely - okay. Just a bit up from candle sticks. Better than nothing. though.

The Briggs and Stratton folks describe how the ride-on "is equipped with a special alternator system. The lights are not connected to the battery. But have their own electrical source. Because of this, the brightness of the lights will change with engine speed. At idle the lights will dim. As the engine speeds up the lights will become their brightest." This sounds just like the old dynamo system of one of my push-bike's lighting system when I was a wee lad.

While I have not deliberately gone out searching for photographs of ride-mowers fitted with car spot lights - I do recall seeing photographs of car spot lights fitted to ride-on mowers. It is funny the strange things we sometimes remember.

If I went the lighting upgrade route, what specifications of automotive light could I go to? Would it be something like a pair of el-cheapo spot/flood lights, or a small light bar? Would these lights be able to linked to the current lighting wiring system? Or would the lights need to be connected to the battery - with the hope that the alternator can keep up with the load, without draining the battery?

Yes, you are right; because I am unemployed again, I do have too much free time on my hands.

Your recommendations - of lights - will be most gratefully appreciated.

Kind regards
Lionel

figure out the operating resistance of the original bulb, cut a chunk of heater element to give the same resistance, maybe a touch more. Grab a decent sized capacitor thats got a higher voltage rating than the OEM light., grab your LED light of choice.

Wire all 3 in parallel, done.

easy version.

with the engine running at full RPM probe the supply side of the light switch and work out what the peak voltage of the lighting system is. If its under 32v throw any multivoltage LED light in there you like, IF it flickers too much chuck a decent cap on in paralell with the led light.

you could also work out what the peak current delivery from the power source is in watts, find a 12V(ish) zenner diode that can dump all that many watts and use it to clamp the voltage down to 12(ish) volts. Add led lights as you like.

Theres only 3 ways to pull of what theyre doing (that Im aware of and make sense.

1. Using a second inductor away from the ignition pickup to get some grunt from the magnet in the flywheel to run the lights with a fairly simple blocking diode configuration which will also potentially charge the battery
2. Using tapping of the front of a diode on the battery charge circuit to run the lights if its using a CDI system like a motorbike
3. If its running an alternator it'll possibly be picking up on a secondary point on the rectifier pack.

in case 1, the voltage in theory can go towards infinite not many amps but enough that it could take out LED's if you dont have something to control the voltate.
in case 2 so long as the battery is connected and moderately healty you'll only see a couple of volts more than battery voltage,
in case 3, you'll only see upto the same voltage as whats on the battery

in case 2 and 3, for different but similar reasons, at low engine speed you could see more voltage on the battery than whats going to be going to the lights. When that happens your not draining the battery but you're not putting anything back in either. If its a CDI or similar style ignition (if you can use a ripcord to start it with no battery this is what you hace) then the engine will run like this without any issue and wont drain the battery. In both these cases peak voltage limited at around 14v anyway, if it wasnt as soon as one light let go the rest would follow in quicker sucession as the power went up.