Farmall Cub

Well, I drug my feet, got busy and sidetracked and failed to order a few of the battery maintainers Jim Becker had given the "heads up" on back in October at Wally. I figured I would order a few today and see they have one of the Schumacher models on sale for $14.97! I ordered 3 and got FREE shipping! SO.. thought I would pass this on with all the cold weather starting posts going on......

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-XM ... p/15140193

Thanks for the reminder. My high lift uses four six volt batteries that seem to go dead over the winter. The repair shop can't find a voltage drain anywhere so I need to keep them charged. The dealer recommends charging them once a month. The built in charger is fine but you have to remember to plug it in once a month and then take it off when done or loose the batteries to freeze. After two years of problems (four new batteries each time) I decided to move the batteries indoors for the winter and put them back in the spring. The maintainers would be good for keeping them fresh while in storage. Certainly cheaper than new batteries at $129.00 each

Barnyard, if your charger is manual without it's own timer, get a programmable timer and set it to run for an hour or so once a week. I have the maintainers for the H and portable generator set up that way and it works great.

John, the machine has a brand new built in charger that charges all four batteries at the same time. It does not have a timer. Anything I buy will have to be able to charge four batteries at once. Since the batteries will be out and stored in the basement during the winter I figured the maintainers would do the job for less money. Also, that way I don't have to remember to go downstairs to shut down my regular charger.

dgrapes59 wrote:Well, I drug my feet, got busy and sidetracked and failed to order a few of the battery maintainers Jim Becker had given the "heads up" on back in October at Wally. I figured I would order a few today and see they have one of the Schumacher models on sale for $14.97! I ordered 3 and got FREE shipping! SO.. thought I would pass this on with all the cold weather starting posts going on......

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-XM ... p/15140193

Sometimes it pays to wait! Glad you got yours on sale!!

I have one on my working Cub with blade and snow blade in the barn and another in the garage with four other batteries I've pulled from my garden tractor, 2 Cubs and an H. I rotate the leads each day from one battery to the next. Keeps 'em maintained and ready to go.

Barnyard wrote:John, the machine has a brand new built in charger that charges all four batteries at the same time. ......

I was thinking of leaving them in the lift, and using the internal charger on the batteries controlled by the timer.

John *.?-!.* cub owner wrote:

Barnyard wrote:John, the machine has a brand new built in charger that charges all four batteries at the same time. ......

I was thinking of leaving them in the lift, and using the internal charger on the batteries controlled by the timer.

Now I got ya'. Never thought of that, I'll look into that.

Barnyard stated: My high lift uses four six volt batteries that seem to go dead over the winter. The repair shop can't find a voltage drain anywhere…..

All our newer tractors have modules in the electronics' that cause a parasitic draw of 300 milli amps. Usually in 30 days (most of the tractors set all winter) the batteries are discharged enough and should be recharged or damage could result because of freezing. The solution was to start the tractors to recharge the batteries or use a battery maintainer. After forgetting to start /charge or putting a charger on the tractors a couple of times I tried this to shut the electronics down completely and no battery failures up to this point.(This winter)

Battery cutoff switch…. They make these things in various designs, but I have a lot of space to install so I choose this type. If I remember I paid $2 per.

I've used that type of disconnect on our John Deere compact diesel. They work fine until the soft plastic threads on the battery half get cross-threaded, which is easily done. I'm searching for something a little more substantial.

Don McCombs wrote:
They work fine until the soft plastic threads on the battery half get cross-threaded...

Don,
Thanks for the warning.

I have been reading the maintainer posts.

I was wondering. If the maintainer will keep an auto size battery charged up do you think one of these maintainers will keep 2 or 3 lawnmower size batteries charged up if they are wired together in parallel? Connect one leak to the first battery and the other lead to the last battery so the charge is running through all the batteries.

Yes it can be done in parallel.

Just picked mine up. Thanks, David.

Bill

Don,
I had to get a backhoe out to move snow today and I check on one of those battery disconnects I have and I didn’t see any plastic on it at all except for the knob. I only turn the knob about 1/8 turn to disconnect. I tried to separate the halves and couldn’t. I had to get to work…when I get time I’ll remove one completely and investigate. Sorry for the bad photo I was in a dark building when I took the pictures.

My 3 arrived yesterday and 2 are in use now, they look like nice little units.