by Tim Fulton on March 8, 2011
Now that we’re nearing the end of winter, I have finally got my snow blower attachment installed and working on the mower.
This is the mower at the end of fall. I had taken the mowing deck off and had test fit the blower attachment. As you can see, the arm for rotating the blower’s chute goes right through one of the front batteries. This required me to change the battery racks again. Thankfully, I now have a much shorter motor, and there is enough room for me to put a battery directly over the motor.
I think this new battery arrangement will work out better not just for blowing, but also for cutting the grass. With the double wide battery up front, I did have a little trouble with seeing the edge of the grass line if I was going around a corner sometimes. It wasn’t a big deal, but this will fix that.
So, with the racks remade, and a new belt for the blower attachment, I was able to spin it up the other night. Hopefully, I’ll get one more snow this year to try it out. I’d really love to ditch (well, proably freecycle) my old gas snow blower.
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by Tim Fulton on November 8, 2010
At the end of the last update, I had gotten a new motor for the mower. The next step was to run it in. Running in the motor seats the brushes so they can transmit the power that the motor is rated for without any problems. This took a few days of running it on the bench at 12 volts.
Next, I had to deal with the shorter motor shaft. The top pulley doesn’t slip all the way on to the shaft. So, I ended up talking with an engineer at work. After a few calculations that took into account the power we were transmitting, we came to the conclusion that the current pulley engagement on the shaft was plenty. I added the bolt and washer to the end to add a little safety.
Now, the new motor has a different bolt pattern than the old motor. So, I welded the old holes shut and primed it to stop rust. I then drilled the new holes for the new motor.
With that all done, it was simply time to bolt the new motor in, hook up the belts and wire it back up.
A couple days later, due to bad weather, I got to use the mower. I must say, the new motor works amazingly well. This is my only mower, and it had been two months since I was able to cut the grass. In combination with that, it is fall and the leaves are almost all on the ground. The mower went through them like a champ though! It did slow down, but it still cut the grass very well, no uncut patches. Also, with the new permanent magnet motor, the rpms are more constant which makes the mower easier to use. The drive and deck speeds are right where they are supposed to be as well, and the new motor is even quieter than the old one. I am extremely happy with the new setup and can’t see changing anything mechanically.
by Tim Fulton on September 30, 2010
Last I wrote, the EcoRider’s motor had given up the ghost. The power requirements were just too much for the motor to handle and it overheated. I contacted some of the local EV guys for suggestions on replacement motors and if they had any suggestions on where I could get the motor rewound. One of my friends there highly recommended going with a motor with a higher power rating, the Mars ME0708. I was quite reluctant to go ahead with this motor due to the price tag of $450 (plus shipping on a 30 pound motor). However, I did happen to take a look on ebay and find someone selling one and the price was much more reasonable, so I nabbed it.
The same friend that recommended the motor also works at Helwig Carbon a spring and brush manufacturer. He works in the test lab and had actually tested the ME0708. They had developed new springs for the motor that extend the brush life by roughly two times. He was nice enough to get me the springs he had used to do the testing.
One great thing about this motor is that I have specifications on it. That means I know almost the exact rpm it will be turning while cutting the grass. This allowed me to very accurately size the pulleys needed for the mower this time around.
However, there is a small problem with this motor. The shaft is significantly shorter than the Baldor motor I had been using before. As you can see in the picture, the second pulley isn’t fully engaged on the shaft. Some modification to the pulleys will be needed to get that second pulley on more.
by Tim Fulton on September 16, 2010
Well, what I had been trying to avoid with the 48V conversion and playing with pulley sizes has not worked. The motor has failed on the mower. I was mowing and suddenly lost power and heard a odd rubbing noise from the mower. Then, a small bit of smoke. I quickly turned it off and pushed it back to the garage (from the farthest corner of the yard of course).
Here we have the main issue with the motor. This is the armature, the part that spins. It appears the motor overheated, the glue that held the wire let loose, and the wire hit the outer housing as it was spinning and broke it clean off. This happened on both sides of the armature.
Here we can see a bunch of thread that was trimmed off the armature as well. It made a big mess all over the inside of the motor as it shredded it up into little scraps that make it look almost like dust.
So, I am now looking into what to do. My options are to rewind the motor, or find a replacement. I’m leaning more toward a replacement seeing as this motor was only really designed to put out 1.6 horsepower and I am making it put out 4-5 horsepower which makes it run hot. So, if I rebuild it I’ll have to cool the motor somehow to stop this from happening again. It might just be better if I got a motor actually rated for the horsepower that the mower requires.
by Tim Fulton on September 9, 2010
Since I upgraded to 48V, I now have one more battery to charge. I used to pull the mower into the garage, put a trickle charger on one battery and a fast charger on the other. That night or the next morning I would move the fast charger to the next battery and let the trickle charger continue with its battery. That evening or the next day it would be fully charged and ready to go. Of course, now I have another battery which means one more day of charging and having to remember that I have to put the charger on the next battery.
I really didn’t like the idea and hassle of doing all of that, so I looked into getting an onboard battery charger(s). This would allow me to pull into the garage, plug in and forget about it until I need to use it again.
I poked around the net and looked at many options. I ended up contacting Darryl who runs Econogics.com a Soneil charger distributor. Darryl was extremely helpful in helping me choose the right charger for my mower. In the end, I chose to get four individual 3 amp chargers from him, one for each battery. This makes sure each battery is topped off as much as can be and doesn’t overcharge them at all.
Installing the chargers was extremely easy. I just ran the positive and negative leads to each battery with ring terminals. The other end of the charger is just plugged into a power strip I had. Now, I have a single plug to plug in to an extension cord instead of trying to find places to plug in four chargers.
Having used it a few times, it is really great. I finish mowing, pull into the garage, grab my extension cord and plug in. I sized the chargers so that the next morning the mower is ready to go again. No more hassle and the batteries are now being taken of a little better which means longer battery life. As added icing on the top, the Soneil chargers are much more efficient than my other chargers I had been using. So, it now uses even less power to recharge, a little over 3 kWh to do my whole lawn. Thats the equivalent of about 1/10th gallon of gasoline.
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