I have a Toro Ecycler. Unfortunately the wires pulled out of the plug that attaches to the mower. I can measure the polarity of the wires with a multimeter but I am not sure which side of the plug the positive wire goes in to. The plug has a specific orientation when plugged in so I assume there is a proper place for the positive and the negative. Do I have to dissemble the mower and trace the wires from the input plug or is there some rule of thumb for plus and minus or some way to tease it out. I tried sticking the multimeter probes into the female plug on the mower but do not get any reading unless I am not doing it properly. Thanks for any advice!
#2
BlazNT
Send me a picture of what is broken.
#3
exotion
Black wires are usually ground.
On the "male plug" if one of the prongs is a little wider its the positive.
On the machine the ground is bolted to the machine.
#4
BlazNT
OK on a battery powered mower something plugs into 120 AC and then something else is DC. Both share a black wire with totally difference outputs. That is why I want to see what is broken.
Thanks for the help I think I got it figured out. The DC output wires from the charger had pulled out of the plug that plugs in to the machine. There is no discernible difference between the wires but since the plug has a definite orientation I assume the polarity matters. I used a multi-meter to determine the positive wire (causes needle to move in positive direction when positive probe touched to positive wire and negative probe touched to negative wire). I then took the cover off the mower and found that Toro had nicely color coded the wires leading from the plug - one red, one black. Assuming the red wire is positive then that is the plug input that is towards the front of the mower. I pushed the metal pieces out of the plug, stripped the wire ends, crimped the metal pieces around the wire and put them in with the positive wire towards the front. The plug fits a little tight, not sure I didn't put the metal pieces back in a little far but the charger light goes from green to red when plugged in, indicating that it is charging. I have not tried a long charge yet as I want to be around for supervision when I do that but it would appear to be working okay. Thanks again for the advice.
