EcoRider - riding lawn mower electric conversion

[Daox]

As promised, at least one pic (sorry, been car shopping for other people lately). This is the new shunt and ammeter. Meter courtsey of Ben Nelson and shunt courtsey of Tom G! Thanks guys!

[MetroMPG]

Nice. I love the old-fashioned look of that shunt.

[wyatt]

Originally Posted by Daox

Well, no luck at the truck stop unfortunately. I guess semis don't use deep cycles, but just normal starting batteries.

You may have better luck at an RV dealer, or anywhere they sell solar or wind power installers. If I remember correctly that's where some others have gotten deep cycle batteries for alternator deletes.

[Tango Charlie]

Boats use deep cycle batteries. Check with your local friendly marina.

[Hugh Jim Bissel]

Originally Posted by Daox

I've also been looking at voltmeters for the mower....I'm also looking into a way to monitor each battery so I know if there is a weak one...

In his build thread MetroMPG installed this gauge. With it you can see which batteries are going out before they actually die.

YouTube - #6) Project ForkenSwift electric car: LED battery gauge

He mentioned the builder had a schematic and parts list, but I didn't see a link to them.

Edit: was reading more in the Forkenswift conversion thread, saw a link to evconvert.com and took a look to see what was there. What a crazy random happenstance: the top blog article is part two of how to build the previously mentioned meter! So here you go:

Part 1

Part 2

[Daox]

Yep, that was the circuit I was planning on making. I then sent those schematics over to an electronics knowledgeable friend who is part of the local EV build club. He is thinking about making a batch of them to sell. So, I'm kind of waiting on him.

[Daox]

ITS ALIVE!!!

I've been working on the mower all day and I just got back from my first trip around the yard! Oh yes, I had a big ol EV grin on my face!

I mounted the motor up with the new pullies on it. I had one deep cycle laying around and one starting battery. So, I pulled the battery out of the Paseo to make three batteries. The deep cycle got shoved in the steering column box and the other two got strapped to the sides. I wired it all up with the ammeter and shunt, and used a digital multimeter to keep an eye on the voltage.

Here is the setup:







Unfortunately, I didn't hook the drive belt up correctly, so there was a quite a bit of belt slippage. I'm looking into fixing that as I type this.

I did get some good numbers though. Just having the motor on and spinning the transmission draws about 25 amps. Oddly enough, putting it in gear and driving around takes just above 25 amps once you start moving. Until you're up to speed it takes a tiny bit more, but not much. However, once I dropped the mower deck and engaged the blades the amperage shot up to about 100! As the blades increased in speed and leveled off, the amperage dropped back down to about 75. This is higher than I was hoping, but I'm also hoping that the slipping belt has something to do with it. If the mower is going to draw 75 amps, I'm going to need some decent sized batteries to make sure I can mow the entire lawn all at once.

I also thought it would be nice to show a video at least of it starting up. Its a bit loud only because everything on the mower rattles. You never notice this when you have an engine roaring though!

YouTube - ecorider start up

[MetroMPG]

75 amps! What a hog!

Congrats on the successful first test drive.

[MetroMPG]

Are the figures for driving on the grass, or on the driveway ?

[Daox]

I drove on the grass, cutting it, in first gear.