Was away for a while and have been busy with other things and haven’t had time to wrap up the electric mower project. Just went to give it a quick test drive, since I hadn’t tested the brake switch that shuts off the motor. Good news is that it works, the bad news is one of my two batteries is dead, or at least pining for the fjiords. Was able to drive around on 12V, but slowly.

The battery was old and was the original starter battery for the mower when it ran on gas. I bought a second just like it to get up to 24V, but it wasn’t really ideal for the job. I’m thinking of options, including some nice new lithium batteries. They are expensive (relatively) but my next project was to play around with some solar panels and battery storage, something that could be useful here in Texas. I have heard of talk of people using their electric car batteries as home storage, so why not use a riding mower? Ok, maybe just to power my shed.