127 lights flickering
 

Before I buy new parts, I wanted to see what your gentlemen's opinion is of my situation.

I have a cub 127. It is my main mowing tractor. This summer I had to replace the starter solenoid because it was stuck on. At that time I was having a lot of other electrical gremlins so I order a wiring harness from Mlamar on this forum. At that time, I also replace all headlights and taillights with ones from ccspecialties. I also replace the voltage regulator with one from my other running 127 since the original one had a broken mount and was held on with electrical tape. The battery is only 6 months old.

The tractor runs great and mows like a dream. However, it was late last night and I switched on the headlights to see better. The lights pulse and flicker at both idle and WOT. Is my regulator bad or do I have another issue here? Any help would be much appreciated.

I'd say you have a bad field in the S/G.
Check the out put with a DVOM and see if the voltage fluctuates. If so, rewinding it or replacement will be your options. May have bad contact on a brush, but that's a maybe.
It's possible the regulator isn't working right.... possible.

Jonathan knows more about electrical circuits on these than I do. I would just add that I would check and tighten all connections, including the headlight retainers. Make sure wires are away from the grass screen....I had the same problem on a 123 I once had and I found out the wire touched the grass screen enough to shave off the wire insulation to the headlights, exposing the wire. They started flickering and the wire was arcing on the shroud.

Cub Cadet 123

Is it possible that you just don't have a good ground connection?

Although it was earlier this year before replacing the wiring, I measured the voltage at the battery at idle and WOT and it was 14.8 idle and about 15.6 at WOT. I'll recheck all my connections to the starter/generator and clean up my ground like Sam said. If I get a chance to try a better DVOM this weekend I will since mine was a cheap Harbor Freight special so who knows if its accurate.

Thanks for the help, at least this gives me options to try instead of just replacing random parts.

If your meter is accurate it sounds like your regulator is adjusted just a little hot, IIRC 14.6 is about where it should be at WOT.

Glad to hear that it sounds like you're not going to have to dump a bunch of money into it, chasing down grounds can sometimes suck.

Might try a jumper wire from neg. bat to neg. light terminal or wire, just to save headaches if that isn't the problem.

Good Luck

could be a bad light switch,seen it before,is it a cub one?

No, I couldn't afford one, it's just a toggle switch from Bomgaars. I'll give the jumper a try tonight and see if that helps.

Lew could very well be right, bad/weak switches will cause those symptoms.

Jumper across the switch and see if they still flicker.

Played around with it some tonight and checked the voltage again. Now I'm getting from 14-17 at low idle and 20-22 volts at WOT.

The flickering stopped when I ran a jumper but only from the light it was touching. I was going to clean the ground connection but my jumper hit the positive terminal and tripped my fuse so I had to be done for the night.

Anyone know why my voltage is so high?

Just out of curiosity what kind of volt meter are you using? Voltage that high at WOT would boil your battery. :bigthink:

Lew could very well be right on about the switch, especially if you aren't using a cub one or something heavy duty. You might have a good aftermarket switch, but not quite something that stands up to the vibration.

I too think your meter is wrong. A generator is not capable of putting out 20V. 17V is about their max.

I've never seen a switch that made something "pulse". I highly, highly doubt is't a switch.

May not have good ground and the regulator isn't charging right. That can cause a pulse..... But I also doubt it's just the ground for the light.

Used my dad's GB multi-meter and got 14 at idle and 15.4 at WOT. Otherwise a new fuse so I'm going to replace it and take a note Emory cloth to the ground before I replace the switch but it's looking like that may be my weak link.

That's still too high. You don't want anything over 14.5 really....

The accuracy of the meter was questioned, how about checking it on a standard? Try it on your battery without the engine running and see what you get. Then try it on a couple more known good batteries. All the results should be pretty darn close. FWIW, I have a meter that stays at my house so I can check voltage of my generator output should we lose power. I have checked the readings in my house and wrote them on the back of the meter, then I make sure I am getting the same when the power goes out and I have to switch to generator.

Since I was getting too many volts to the battery and I noticed I was getting moisture/nasty corrosion around the positive pole (possibly boiling the battery) I decided to get just a new voltage regulator. I'm now getting 12.8 V at idle and about 14.2 V at WOT.

At idle my lights are fine now but when I throttle up, the lights started flashing again. I took the lead wire from the switch off the right light and touched it to the left light and the flashing in the left bulb stopped but the right one continued to flicker.

The only thing that I can think of is that I just have a bad bulb in the right side? I've tightened all the connections and cleaned the ground, I even have the lights grounded with the voltage regulator on the same bolt. I don't think it is the switch if its just the one bulb but any takes on the situation are more then welcome.

Swith the lights left to right and see if the flicker moves.

I don't think those lights are expensive. You could get a new one to try it out. Might be something loose inside and you're pulsing is more from a loose connection and the vibrations at WOT, not necessarily an electrical issue.

Lights aren't too bad but the shipping is. I try to wait until I have more parts I need before I order from CCSpecialties or ihccw. I do have a local Case IH dealer a few towns away so I might go and see if they stock any cub parts.

J-Mech - I didn't completely switch the lights around but I did switch the wires around and the one bulb still flickered

Bulbs are part number 4411. Any parts store will have them

It's just a PAR 36 bulb, you can get those anywhere. Amazon has them for under $10 or you could go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get them. Might be able to get them from you local farm supply store too (Tractor Supply, etc.). I think Walmart has them too, or at least they can get them.

The glass envelope or "bulb" of all incandescent lamps is measured in eighths of an inch. Thus a PAR 36 is, nominally, 36 eighths of an inch in diameter. The approximate nominal lamp bell diameter in inches can be found by dividing the PAR size by 8. For example, a PAR30 lamp is approximately 3.75 inches in diameter.