jamis

Absolutely, I think the shortage of Leoch LPC12s & The newer LDC12s is pandemic related. Also, I suspect the reason that HD has substituted the MM batteries as they are used in many other devices besides Ryobi's mowers. Looking forward to your test resilts.

I also find it interesting that HD dropped the Leoch batteries and basically replaced them with the MightyMax batteries. I looked at them closely and they do seem to be pretty much equivalent to the LPC12s. Ryobi has refused to bless/condemn the MMs and maintains the LPC12s & LDC12s are the proper batteries to use. I'm really wishing someone would spend the money to try the MightyMax batteries, but mine are still running strong. I mowed today for 37 minutes and used no bars and no % on the meter. I did use 1.3 volts starting at 50.5. This will be charge number 211 on the pack. From your last description, I still think you have one battery that has a weak or failing cell. Update: This latest charge took 4 hours and used 1,490 watts ($0.16 @ my rate), ending voltage is 52.2. The pack will go for 7 days before self discharging below 50 volts. When new, the pack could go for a month without a maintenance charge. However, the more frequent charges are much smaller than the earlier ones a couple of years ago. Early maintenance charges were around 650 watts, now they are 10 watts. Not sure yet what this means as the run time numbers are nearly like new.

In case anyone is interested, I spent $30 for a recording electrical meter to record usage parameters for my mower. It is a Poniie PN2000 meter and it plugs into the wall outlet and the the charger plugs into the meter. I have it set to show watts and I can see when the charging system draws power from the wall outlet. Since I park the mower next to the door from the garage into the house, I can see at a glance if the mower has had a charge event when I come into or leave the house.

The only test for lead acid batteries I know of is the load test where the test instrument puts a variable load on the fully charged battery and shows the how the battery responds to the increasing load. In the case of mine, the voltage fell off dramatically as the load was increased. The tool the battery shop used to test mine was rather large (almost the size of the battery itself) and far more expensive than I could afford. Far cheaper to haul the four batteries to the battery shop and let a technician do it. As for percentage of life left, I don't think there is a way to show it. After 3 years of recorded data, I see only a slow trend of increasing watts needed to fully recharge the pack for a given voltage use. However, it is not linear, nor predictable based on all of the variables in mowing. One measurement I've followed is the cost per hour to run. When new, the cost per hour was under $0.20/hr. and three years later, it's under $0.24/hr. But lately, I've been mowing almost triple the sq.ft. of lawn, so the batteries are being discharged more for each run. Another parameter I watch is the time between maintenance charges to see the health of the pack.

Not sure, however SLA/AGM batteries do not do well long term when trickle charged. The technical term is sulfication, which is a buildup of crystals of sulfate on the plates of the cells. It can shorten the lifespan of some batteries and how they perform. Ryobi says to charge the batteries individually once a month if removed from the mower with a regular automotive type charger, preferably one with a deep cycle setting. The Ryobi charging system is designed to automatically charge the battery pack when it falls to 50 volts. It only uses wall power when a maintenance charge is needed. This allows the batteries to discharge slightly and then be recharged. This prevents the sulfication process and lengthens the life of the batteries. It's a nice system as it lets you pretty much set it and forget it. My mower has averaged $1.12 worth of electricity for each 5 month winter storage period in my unheated garage. I know of one user who is using a large battery blanket during winter storage on his RM480. The important thing is that the batteries should be able to sit for a couple of months before needing a charge. If a SLA/AGM is allowed to completely discharge, it will be ruined.

If the blades are not blocked by buildup under the deck and are not spinning, what level of charge is the meter showing? Otherwise, call Ryobi at the number on the label under the seat. You will also need the model number, manufacturer number, and serial number from the label when you call.

Home Depot is listing SLA/AGM group 24 & 31 batteries that appear to be very similar to the Leoch LPC12s. Prices are $149 & $175 for the 75 ahr. & 100 ahr. The batteries are by MightyMax and have nearly the same charge cycles as the LPC12s. No one has said they will work in the Ryobi system. When the battery shop that tested my batteries, their load testing machine showed the failing battery voltage falling as the load was increased. The Leoch batteries should be good for 1,500 - 1,700 charge cycles, so I replaced the failed battery. That was two years ago and they are still working well. I measure each use and all charge cycles and still see very little difference from when the mower was new. I have 206 charge cycles including winter storage with 150 actual usages.

Just a note to show how the charge usage can vary independent of time, here's the variance after three years of use. My usual mow is my 10,000 sq.ft. lawn and these are the ranges when 12 of those mows used 1.3 volts: 0 - 2 bars out. .33 - .80 hours on the meter. 975 - 1,800 watts to recharge. I get similar ranges for any other volt usages.

Be prepared for the repair center to be not all that knowledgeable on these. We have four of these on our street and the repair center a mile and a half away has never seen one yet. Ryobi parts are sometimes backordered too. The center here has seven backpack leaf blowers in their shop waiting on parts. Ryobi has a 55 page troubleshooting guide that the repair center should have. If you want a digital copy, message me here with your email address and I'll send it to you.

Since you can measure the voltage, if you can have your meter plugged into the charging port while you turn on the mower and then engage the deck motors, measure the pack voltage at each step. If the voltage drops, then I'd think there is a weak battery in the pack. Mine behaved this way until it ultimately failed and the charger started displaying the two red flashes signifying voltage too low (less than 36 volts) for the charger to charge the system.

A lot of things factor into charge usage, but your description of the blades shutting off at 49.4 volts tells me one of the batteries has developed a weak cell and is not able to support the load of mowing. The deck blades should shut down closer to 36 volts and two red bars or less. Once off the load, the voltage will rebound, but drop off as soon as a load is applied. I had this happen with my RM480e 11 months into use. Ryobi helped me with troubleshooting. I charged the batteries and took them to a local battery shop for load testing. One battery would fail under load, but would slowly take a charge. The mower runs as good as new at three years. I'd call Ryobi at the number on the label under the seat with the model number, manufacturer number, and serial number from the label. They can help you with sourcing a replacement battery.

I have three years of accumulated usage and charge data and I still can't equate voltage usage with percentage left and bars out. However, the percentage shown on the meter does equate with bars out, but I still don't know how meter calculates things. Even bars out doesn't equate to recharge wattage. It must be something unique to how the SLA/AGM discharge under load. I have learned that the three different lawn sizes I mow will use varying amounts of charge, no matter what I do.

Glad it helped. Enjoy.

The battery meters have changed over the years, but the basic functions haven't. Ground speed can have a big impact on charge usage. I can mow for around 80 minutes with my RaM480e and use anywhere from 2 to 4 bars and use 20% to 30% of the charge. Voltage drop can range from 2.7 volts to 3.7 volts. All of these were cutting 1/4" to 1/2" off of the grass. I'd say your machine is running to spec. If you can, try a mow with cruise control on. If not set too fast, it seems to use the charge a wee bit better.

I mowed today for 1.3 hours by the meter, 81 minutes by my phone, used 3.7 volts of the available charge, with 2 bars out on the BLM, and 82% of the charge left. The recharge took 2,380 watts and 4 hours to complete. Cost was $0.31 at my $0.13 per kilowatt hour cost.

One of things I've learned is these batteries seem to get "lazy" (for the lack of a better term) when they are not used. During winter storage, the batteries in my mower have required maintenance charges more often as time goes by, but the charges are smaller in wattage. Then when the mowing season begins, the first few runs seem to use more charge than normal. However, once usage gets into the normal rhythm of mowing every 4 or 5 days, the batteries return to their normal performance. Indeed, this year with all of the rain we've had (the area is almost 9" over norm), the batteries are performing better than previous years.

The way the electronics manage the batteries, conditioning, or formatting, should not be necessary. What indications are you getting after 15 - 20 minutes of use? How many bars out on the BLM? Do the deck motors shut down? If this were my mower, I'd measure the pack voltage after the charge cycle completes (should be well above 52 volts), right before you mow (should be well above 50 volts) , and after you are done or the mower shuts down (this one is really important). You can measure the pack voltage at the bottom two contacts of the charging port with a volt meter. If the voltage is dropping a lot in that 15 minutes, you may have a weak, or failing battery in the pack. I typically mow for about 45 minutes to mow my yard and the voltage will drop less than 2 volts for that time of mow and have one or no bars out. I had a battery go bad after 11 months, which Ryobi replaced under warranty, and the mower ran better than when new. Ryobi walked me through the battery troubleshooting process and that identified the one battery that could not hold its charge under load. It looked like the battery was weak from the beginning. I still measure the voltage, hour meter, bars out, and now the percentage at the start and finish of each usage to track any performance trends. Today, I used my three year old RM480e to mow for 58 minutes and used 1 bar, 2.4 volts, & 2% of the available charge. If things don't change for you, call Ryobi with the model number, manufacturer number, and serial number from the label under the seat and open a ticket with them to ensure you have warranty coverage.

Gotta brag. We have been inundated with rain for the last couple of weeks and mowing has become a task to get done between storms. I recently mowed two 10,000 sq.ft. lawns and the 16,000 sq.ft. lot next door on a single charge. Total run time was 2.3 hours and I mowed until the deck motors shutdown. When I got back to the charger, the BLM was at one red bar, 9% available, and 42.2 volts. Beginning voltage was 51.5 volts. Also, since the hour meter has been 7% understated, the actual run time was 2.5 hours. Not bad for a 35 month old mower with 97 hours of run time and 195 charge cycles that is supposed to run for up to 2 hours. The recharge consumed 4,050 watts, which cost me $0.53 in electricity and took 9 hours to complete.

So far, the BLM mod has shown me that the bars out is directly related to the percentage left. 0 - 9% = 0 bars out, 10 - 19% = 1 bar out, and so on. I still can't figure out how the meter calculates the percentage remaining. I can't correlate time, voltage, temperature, recharge watts, ground speed, or mowing conditions to percentage. What I can determine is that charge usage is highly variable based on several factors, so I can mow the same sq.ft. and get different readouts on the BLM.

For those out there that are modifying the BLM to display volts, %, and hours run; be prepared to be confused unless you are an electrical engineer. After four mows with the mod., I still can't equate usage to how much battery charge is used with each use. However, I mowed today for 1.6 hours, used 2.8 volts of the available charge, and the BLM showed 78% left with 3 bars out. Last week, I mowed the same 26,000 sq.ft. of lawn for 1.4 hours, used 4.7 volts of the available charge, and the BLM showed 58% left with 5 bars out. Confusing, but given the mower is 35 months old with 137 mows, 97 hours of use, and 193 charge cycles, it still mows as well as it did new. The RM480e is supposed to be good for two hours of run time and mine just did 1.6 hours with waaaay more than half of the available charge left.

The last time I looked, the Trojan lithium batteries that would fit were out of stock and incredibly expensive compared to the SLA/AGM batteries (like by a factor of four). The Leoch LPC12 batteries are NOT proprietary as they are used in wind farms, solar arrays, golf carts, UPS installations, and mobility devices. The batteries supplied in these mowers are SLA/AGM industrial grade batteries. In addition, the electronics in these mowers will NOT work with lithium technology. It's been stated so by Ryobi and someone who tried it. You would have to change all of the controllers/processors in the mower and get a new charger. The supplied batteries in these mowers are rated to do 1,500 - 1,700 charge cycles. By comparison, the lithium batteries in the new Ego 42" zero turn rider are rated by Ego for 1,000 charges. Tesla stated back in March that the current batteries in their cars are rated for about 1,600 charge cycles. HD is now selling Mightymax SLA/AGM batteries in group 24 and 31 case sizes which will fit in these mowers. I'm trying to get Mightymax to state the charge cycle counts for these batteries. Leoch has a new model (LDC12) of SLA/AGM batteries out that are rated for 1,700 - 2,000 charge cycles.

For nearly three years, I've been trying to figure out how the Battery Level Meter works with no help from Ryobi and I hope this meter mod will provide the additional data to accomplish that. I've been recording volts used, time mowed, bars out, recharge watts, and turf conditions plugged into a spreadsheet to reverse engineer how the meter decides when to turn a bar LED off. So far, I can link nothing, or see a pattern to things.

The switch is a Normally Open, miniature push button switch. I got mine from my neighbor who is an electronics maven, who bought them off of the internet. He is my neighborhood Radio Shack, which is where I would have gone if we had any of those stores left around here. The electrical values are of little importance as there is no measurable current between the ground lug and the one used for cycling the meter. I measured things with a digital VOM before I attempted the project. Literally, any miniature switch you can find that fits in a 1/4" hole will be sufficient.

Here's a picture of my modified BLM meter. The console on my mower was held down with seven screws and I figured the one between the key switch and meter was not really needed as newer mowers don't have that screw. The screw hole was exactly the right size for the miniature push button switch I used per the video. I've only used it for three mows so far, but it works really well. The meter defaults to hours every time you switch the key on though.

Ryobi has the BLM set up to show only the hours run. There are at least three different versions of the meter on the RM480s. One version has a mode button on the back of the meter that switches between the three modes. Another version has no button, but has an unused lug on the back of the meter that can be shorted to the ground lug to switch modes. A third version does not have the three mode lights on the face of the meter and I'm not sure if it can be modified to switch modes. There is a YouTube video that shows how to modify the meter with the three mode lights so you can use a NO momentary switch button to cycle through the modes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny5R9DvjkCk