OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions on Greenfield Ride On Mower Frames Re: Greenfield Ride-On - Electrical Wiring

Looks like I have the yellow wire already in place in the loom! Will need to look at it in daylight but it appears to come out of the ignition switch, with a fuse inline, then in to a black sleeve then in to main loom, but the sleeve doubles back on itself and disappears where it is tied up, so I could be in luck here with one power supply, but I would like to run the lights off the AC as well, so have bought an On/Off/On Double Pole Double Throw Switch.

My idea is to run the lights from under the flywheel on AC, then if I need more lighting power or emergency lights without the engine running (but with ignition on) then flick the switch over to the battery.

Any idea if this is feasible and what wires would go where on the 6 pins on the rear of the switch!?

Bought some reversing lights, switches, wiring plug, found a bracket & a heat shield as the exhaust is close by to the right hand lamp.

But typical UK weather, cold & damp, so will wait for the weekend if the sun comes out!

Hello Iceman, to find the switching pattern I use a multimeter on unknown switches, switch it continuity "Bell", place your probes on any two contacts and rock the switch back and forth. Do all the combinations. Have a pad and pen handy. You will then soon known exactly how that switch works.

Common faults people make when testing ohmic values:
# poor contact with probes.
# wrong scale selected.
# placing what you want to measure in series with the probes.

Good luck with it.

As you've bought a 'centre off' switch, you can use that on its own if you like. No need for a separate on/off switch.

You will only need to use one side of it; an SPDT switch was all that's required as a selector here.
Wiring it up is simple enough; centre terminal to the lights, and the upper and lower terminals to the AC and DC+ supplies.

Just keep in mind how the switch contacts work, as to which supply is 'on'. I.e. toggle up = lower terminal supply is on, and vice versa.

An issue I'm unsure about here, is the suitability of the LED light modules [if that's what you've got] for direct AC feed.
The AC supply will need to be half [series diode] or full wave [diode bridge] rectified, if they aren't.

The LEDs are diodes, Gadge, and hence don't normally have any issues being connected to AC, in my experience. Of course they are only conducting half the time, so it would be a neat trick to wire one headlight in the forward current direction and the other in the backward current direction, but I don't see any other problems. I haven't actually done it with high power LEDs like these, but LEDs are quite fast-switching, and have a decent Peak Inverse Voltage rating like most silicon diodes, so I'd expect it to work.

However, Iceman's lights look like incandescent filament ones anyway.

Agreed; I'd just edited my post to reflect that.
As regards the LED modules I've looked at, they quite obviously have more circuitry in them than just the LED's - they're OK with 9-33V supply. So they have at least voltage regulation, and likely current limiting, built in.

If they have electronics on board, they are highly likely to require the right supply polarity. I wasn't thinking of a wide tolerance of supply voltage, just a design which had the same voltage tolerance as an incandescent globe - in other words, very little tolerance.

The separate switch in my photo is for something else

I bought a DPDT switch as I wasn't sure if an SPDT switch would do what I wanted, I know now

So what are the other side of the terminals used for on a DPDT switch?

Had a couple of hours free today so I knocked up the bracket and fitted the lamps and heat shield.

Dug out the yellow wire that was folded up in the loom and yay it does have power!!

Will sort the wiring out next time.

Yep, that's what I was thinking.
From what I read in 'Silicon Chip' magazine, these high intensity white illumination LED's have different characteristics to the small red/green types. They require higher voltage, and a constant current supply for decent intensity and life. Not just a matter of running a few in series from a nominal 12V supply via a current limiting resistor! There are various LED driver chips available, which can run MOSFET switching transistors in a buck/boost power supply so as to use that wide input voltage range. In wholesale quantities, these chips run about a dollar...

Well, they do have a bit of tolerance, but the light intensity drops dramatically under nominal voltage, of course.

Well, DPDT switches are often easier to get than SPDT anyway, particularly in high DC current ratings.

The other side is used to switch another electrically independent circuit at the same time. The DPDT configuration is also easily wired to be a polarity reversal switch, which has its uses.

Excellent cheers, I am a bit concerned about running the lights from the battery itself while running, I put a voltmeter on it to check the output while engine running to see what it is charging at and on tickover it is 12.3v and full revs it is 12.6v. It has a brand new battery.

This worries me as my other Briggs (11.5hp) puts out 12.9v to over 13 volts on full revs, and about 12.6v on tickover.

Not sure if I am missing a voltage regulator, I have tried looking for the location of one online but where is it meant to be on a 15.5hp intek?

Greenfield have an added charging harness which is brand new on mine, numbers 5 and 6 are the harness and charging diode. Would this be what is making the output so low? I am concerned the lights will draw more current than the alternator can put back in!!

The voltage you measure with that test is the battery voltage, not the charging capability of the alternator. Hence all you have shown is that your new battery has not completed its plate-formation process yet, and it won't achieve higher voltages until it has. The only thing you know about your alternator is that it is putting out enough charge to raise the voltage across your battery by 0.3 Volts. From memory, it is a 3 Amp alternator.

I would be very surprised if your engine has a voltage regulator for a tiny alternator like that. All it will do, is put its puny 3 Amps into the battery when it is running flat out, and proportionally less at other times. 3 Amps will not hurt a battery that size, even if it is fully charged already.

On another subject, those mesh screens in front of your headlights will be costing you about 25% of your light output. I don't understand why you used them. They won't protect anything against bumping into solid objects, and I doubt your ride on mower will encounter many small stones thrown up by vehicles at highway speeds.

Cheers, nicely explained, so running headlights should be ok with that amount of charge going in to the battery. I was thinking the battery would drain faster than it could recharge!

The reason the wire mesh is in front of the lights is for two reasons, well three reasons really

It was already in place and I had just painted it as it was rusty,,,

Also, the new lights are a different shape to the holes already in the bonnet as I could not get original items. So to make these lights a snug fit I would have to trim metal off of each side of the headlight hole and weld a strip along the top and bottom of each hole and make the bracket to mount them so the lenses are just protruding through, with a rubber trim around the opening and obviously paint the front of the bonnet. I like the "simple is efficient" rule!

As for stones flying up, when it is on a trailer on the back of my van going to and from jobs, yes it is quite possible, which is why I left them as a type of stone guard, I live on a small island, 26 miles long, and approx. 13 miles wide, (146 sq miles) and our roads are horrendous

It doesn't have one, as was determined earlier in this thread, from the Briggs Repair Manual:

The 'charging diode' in the harness is only there for the hour meter; i.e. so that the meter will only run while the engine is running, and generating power.


Yep, with such a low DC output, it is easy for lights to exceed that, and draw the battery down.
Hence grumpy's [and my] attraction to the much more efficient LED lights, which also draw much less current [<0.3A, or 3.6W, each].
If your lights use standard automotive globes, it is quite easy to get 'LED globe' plugin replacements, and this would be a good way to go.

Just as an example, this mob in the US have a good variety, including some that are OK with 12V AC; https://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/tail-brake-turn/

First, good point about the trailer-work, Iceman, I hadn't thought of that, and as an ex-caravaner, I agree, it would be a problem without stone guards.

Second, on the subject of whether your alternator can keep up with your headlights so your battery is not discharging when you run the lights, we need more information to resolve it. What is the wattage of the globes you have in those lights? Let's say they are ordinary car turn-signal globes, which are usually 18 Watts each I think, but may be a bit more in some cases. Two 18 Watt globes is a total of 36 Watts power consumption. 36 Watts divided by 12 Volts is 3 Amps consumption. Your alternator has to be cranking out 3 Amps to just break even on maintaining the battery's charge. However, you only get 3 Amps when the engine is running full scream, so realistically, you will be losing ground on battery charge any time you run a pair of 18 Watt globes. See why I recommended using the AC line? You'll get dim headlights, but the battery will actually be charging all the time, not discharging slightly.

I think that mower, like most, was designed to use DC for the lights because it was expected to only have the lights on occasionally for short periods, so the battery could recharge the rest of the time, when the lights were not on. Briggs provided the AC output as well, to cater for people who wanted to use the lights a lot.

Going from an expense point of view, I would have thought it would have been easier/cheaper to run a wire from the ignition switch to the hour meter, rather than have extra wires, a wire harness, and charging diode in place! More to go wrong! But I guess no risk of the hours going up if you accidently leave the ignition switched on!




The standard bulbs in the new lights came at 21w. I have got a pair of LED bulbs for it (equivalent to 21w) but testing them in my van rear lights they are dim dim dim, so I think I was sold some dud ones!!

You bought a pair of 21 Watt LED bulbs? You are definitely planning to melt the bushes. A couple of points, though. First, are they rated for AC as well as DC, or only for DC? Second, remember that they use the same amount of power as the original incandescent bulbs that were in those lights, they just produce ten times more light when they do it.

Did you get the correct type of bulb base? There are twin filament bases, with two solder terminals on the end of the base and either symmetrical or offset pins for the bayonet base, similar-looking single filament bases with two solder terminals but only one of them connected, and single filament bases with one central solder terminal and symmetrical pins for the bayonet base. If you have bought single filament bulbs with twin solder contacts, you may not have been applying power to the right contact. If you were forcing a symmetrical-pin single contact bulb into an offset-pin twin contact socket, anything could happen.

That plastic fitting on your engine looks like the mounting for a voltage regulator. Since you did not get a large, regulated alternator, nobody installed a regulator in the mounting.

Mmm, he could just mean that they were sold as 'equivalent to 21W', i.e. claimed similar light output to a 21W conventional incandescent bulb. More likely, I'd reckon, particularly if a FleaBay seller.

+1 on the correct bulb base info, of course.

As an aside, I'm rather impressed with the light output of some of the multi-SMD LED festoon 'bulbs' now made to replace car interior lighting bulbs. The better bayonet cap ones should be good too.

I haven't tried any automotive LED lights yet, mainly because to replace the bulbs in most of my lights you have to dismantle half the car. For example, to replace a parking light or front turn signal bulb you have to begin by removing the front bumper. I think the rear lights are about as difficult. The joys of modern cars.

I remember the old days, when one morning I noticed a parking light was out on my car, replaced the bulb in the time it took to get one from the shed, then went to work and left the parking lights on all day. If I hadn't replaced that bulb I'd have been able to use the starter, but adding the load of that fourth bulb meant I had to push. Luckily, cars of that era were very easy to push start single-handed.

Ah yes, i have the correct fitment and the LED bulbs were listed on eBay as "equivalent to 21w".

Been too wet to wire it up, but as my two mowers do not have any form of ignition lights or "idiot lights" as they are known here, I decided to buy one of these




Quite handy on old bikes and in old cars, and will hopefully show me if all is well with my charging and the battery too.

So that will fill my third hole on the "dashboard" of the Greenfield.

Not so! I found today that if it is removed then no charge goes to the battery!

Finally got around to wiring in the lights, severe wet weather lately and no time to play!

So, first photo, lights on tickover, running off the AC supply.

Second photo on 3/4 throttle running off the AC supply.

Third photo, still at 3/4 throttle I flicked over to the DC supply from the factory fitted wire on the back of the ignition switch.

Fourth photo, There were already 3 holes in the metal body (dashboard) under the sticker, these holes had punched through the thin sticker sheet so I thought I would make use of them, two switches (lights and horn as I may be going road legal next year) I fitted an LED warning light http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321561833001?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT to show charging status, red on tickover and very low revs.

Fifth photo, LED changes to green when revs rise above 1/4 throttle. This LED has a battery checker in it to show flat battery, overcharging etc.

Sixth photo, a little sticker I had made up, this is where it was originally sold.