EcoRider: Bringing Things Together

by Tim Fulton on August 5, 2009

It has been a while since the last update has come.  So, I am splitting the update into multiple parts.  If you are impatient and need to see the latest updates, feel free to check out the EcoRider forum thread. It has all the latest day to day updates in it. For the rest of you, continue reading.

Last I reported, I had gathered a bunch of parts for the mower from a friend who owns a recycling business. He donated a motor, contactors, heavy gauge wire, a controller, and even a bunch of small batteries. This really got the project jump started.

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I started with the motor and figured out how I wanted it mounted to the mower. It was fairly simple. The motor will replace the gas engine with the shaft facing downward. This allows me to use the existing pulley system and makes for a pretty simple conversion.  However, the motor does not have any provisions for mounting its face to the mower chassis.  So, this required taking the motor apart and tapping holes in one end of it.

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The next problem with this is that the pulleys from the gas engine had a 1″ inner diameter, and my motor has a 3/4″ shaft. So, it was time to get a new pulley set.  I purchased pulleys of the same size since I am not sure what the actual rpm of the motor will be.  I might have get new ones if the speeds are off.

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The next thing on the list was to start making battery trays/holders.  This quickly turned out to be a huge pain in the butt.  Eventually, I decided that mounting 24 batteries is more hassle than it is worth.  I returned the 24 small batteries to their previous owner and decided that going with larger batteries would be the way I want to go.

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