My brother-in-law has a loooooong gravel driveway. This is their first winter over their and they ended up getting a used big old-school walk-behind snowblower.

Two times ago that I was over there it smelled like gas in their garage and workshop because of it. (It smelled so bad, you couldn't even walk in there.) The last time I was the, the blower was parked outside, and the driveway was glare ice.

Yeah, I'm thinking I like how EVs don't leak gas or have other maintenance issues.

It sounds like maybe the shifter fork is not holding in place, there are Detent's in the forks with a small spring and ball. Lot's of times the spring breaks and the fork won't hold it's position as good as before.
I'm not familiar with your transmission, some you have to disassemble to get at the Detent's.

I'm sure something is either worn or perhaps a broken detent spring. I'll find out later if it becomes an issue again. Hopefully it can wait until spring though. :)

I have a little mower adventure story to share with you today. Last night I was going to mow my field for the first time this year. I took one pass around the field and stopped the mower because my sister had come over. Later, I went back to continue mowing after she left and to my surprise the mower instantly shredded and snapped the mower deck's belt. So, I cleaned up the broken belt and put it in 3rd gear to take the mower back to the garage. Little did I know that when the other belt was being shredded it also moved the mower's drive belt onto the mower deck pulley which is probably about 3x larger in diameter and had taken all the slack out of the belt so as to render the clutch useless. So, I flicked the switch on and instantly found myself looking up into the air as the mower pulls its front wheels off the ground. It quickly fell back to the ground and bounced back up once again before I could get my hand back to the switch to turn things off. It took a bit of work but I was able to remove the clutch pulley and move the drive belt back to the correct pulley and drive it back to the garage.

To fix this problem in the future (shredded belt), I'm going to have to make some new belt guides. The original guides have been removed and won't work. The motor shaft doesn't stick down as far as the gas engine's shaft did and the pulleys sit up farther. This throws off the belt alignment enough to make the guides useless. This typically results in the belt just falling off the pulley here and there which is a very quick fix. However, after this somewhat funny incident I think its time to make some new guides. :)

Yipes!

The first time I took out my Electrak, I only had batteries in the back, and not the front.

I turned on the drive motor without pushing the clutch in first and realized that these machines can do POP-A-WHEELIES!

Mine didn't get high enough in the air to buck me off, but the front wheels sure left the ground!

Maybe it's time to install a dead-mans switch?
(Come to think of it, mine did originally have a switch under the seat that would kill the main contactor. I always hated that design though, because the mower would kill any time you go over a big bump!)

Oh man, I am jealous my tractor wont pop a wheelie.
I put on a foot control for the speed, so that is my dead man. But my tractor will not mow until I build an electric deck, need one more 24 V mower motor with blade and some time, that should do it.
Anyway do keep the shiny side up.

"So, I flicked the switch on and instantly found myself looking up into the air as the mower pulls its front wheels off the ground. It quickly fell back to the ground and bounced back up once again before I could get my hand back to the switch to turn things off."

If only there were video footage, this would have gone viral on Youtube! :D
Very scary moment when it took off though, I'm sure.

Haha, yeah I did think that a video would have been hilarious. Not only that, but there also just happened to be a tree in front of me too while this was happening. I stopped a couple feet short of it. It was a very quick but very unexpected event. Not the first time I've done a wheelie on the mower though... :) I just don't know how many more the transmission can take.

Well, its that time of year again. This weekend the blower went back on the mower, and the chains were installed. We're ready to go when the snow flies.

I am still looking forward to using the blower since I only got to use it I think 3 times last year. I kept my two stage walk behind as I'm not 100% sure that this is going to be enough. So far though, I've been incredibly happy with it.

http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/ecorider120.JPG

So, after the unintended wheelie in May, you had a trouble-free season of electric lawnmowing?

It's funny how EV conversion projects often go that way: lots of updates during the project, then quiet as things go more or less to plan afterward.

Did you ever make the anti-wheelie belt guide?

Yeah, its pretty boring really as far as updates go. There really isn't anything to report. I go mow the grass much more quietly than the average person, ride back to the garage, plug in and rinse and repeat next week or so. Its just so easy, no maintenance except checking battery water levels once a year. I sure love it!

I used the blower for the first time this year last week. It was super heavy slush/snow which was killing my back to do anything with. Sadly, even with the chains the mower wouldn't go through it. It just sunk in and spun the tires. Maybe weights on the rear tires would have helped, but I kind of doubt it. The ground wasn't even frozen yet which was a big problem. After talking with all the neighbors and relatives, it sounds like it wouldn't have done much good as their snow blowers were just clogging left and right. My wife does professional snow removal and said the guys broke tons of equipment that night.

So, I did the lazy thing, I shoveled what I needed to and then left the rest of it. I then went away for Christmas and came back to it being a hard frozen snow with some ice chunks in it. This made it a breeze to go through with the blower. It cleaned up in no time without any hassle.

I converted my jd gator 4 x 2 to electric and have a 5 ft plow on it. It pushed through that wet heavy stuff like it was not even there. The old 10 HP gas would have struggled.... so much torque I have to change from a coged belt drive to chain drive since the belt would jump the clogged pulleys even with the belt over tightened.

If you had some time, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one interested in hearing about that EV conversion. :)

ElecTrak
 

Just brought back great memories of the ElecTrak we owned in the 70s when I was a kid. That mowed our whole yard (probably 1/2 acre) with plenty of juice left. We also had a snowblower attachment for it that used to make me a bunch of $$$ around the neighborhood. Have you ever heard of these ... and wher the heck did they go - they were WAY ahead of their time :) Can't wait to see your end product

Yep, I've heard of them. A couple guys here own them. :)

First real update in quite a while! One of my Soneil chargers died on me. I'm currently just charging that one battery with a different charger, no big deal. I noticed last time I went to mow that it just wasn't running like it should be. Thankfully I don't think I toasted the battery. Anyway, I got the new charger on order, its just going to take a while to get here as its backordered.

Bummer about the charger. Have you been able to tell if the battery is OK?

My free 12v push mower is being a bit cranky too.

I've used it a few times since my post here. The battery seems to be fine. It holds a higher voltage than my two older batteries. Its roughly 1-2 years newer.

Well, I have some bad news. I must have abused my batteries a bit worse than I thought. I took it for a quick mow tonight and when I brought it back to the garage I noticed one battery was warm. I busted out the voltmeter and that battery was sitting at 8.8V. I'm guessing I reversed a cell or two on it as the other batteries are fine.

Does anyone know if re-reversing a cell is possible?

I think it's theoretically possible, but you'd have to tap (through the case) the electrodes of the middle cell(s) to re-charge them. But I don't know how healthy the battery would be after this.

---

Hate to hit a man when he's down.. but you shoulda been monitoring each battery while mowing!! If you're not running a management system, it's the only way to prevent battricide.

If they are floodies, check the water level first and then see if you can equalize charge them.

Yeah, I know. Ive known for quite a while (which you know haha). What is worse is that I have a 4 battery monitor and I just never have hooked it up.


They are floodies. I checked the water level not long ago and they were good. I'm 99% sure an equalizing charge won't undo a reversed cell.

Some quick googling comes up with this:

Reversed polarity cell in Lead Acid Batteries Forum

Using my electric tractor seemed to work very well, when I added a mower deck it got hard on batts. Am using old batts and run them through desulphation for a few months every year, have blown two 6V golf cart batts using the mower. Tried putting a small 24V batt just for the mower, but that did not seem to work very well. When my ship cometh in I am gonna buy a new set of 4 for tractor & a set of 6 for the coach. 'Till then will buy rum and not worry about the batts.
Note to self; check water levels monthly.

Yeah, tooling around on the mower only pulls 15-25A. The mower deck pulls another 60-90A depending on the grass you're cutting. On average I'd say I'm pulling just under 100A while mowing.

100A! Wow! I pull around 50A on my E15 Elec-Trak and I thought that was high (it goes higher through tall, tough grass if you don't slow down, but I try to keep it at 50A or less on average). Its a 36V system, really not high enough. Are you running 24V?

Unfortunately, I know from experience about this. Put a resistor (a light bulb works great) in series with your bad battery and charge it separately until the voltage comes up to a more 'normal' range. Then you can take the resistor out and charge with a normal charger. The reversed cell will re-reverse. The damage has been done, however, and that cell will never recover its full capacity. To get the battery charged again, the one cell will charge normaly, but the undamaged cells will be overcharged every time. Therefore the life of that one battery will be much shorter, and the capacity of that one battery is limited to that of the damaged cell. Naturally, this brings down the entire pack's capacity to that same point.

I just recently had one battery go bad on the ET in the same way - one bad cell had a lot less capacity than the rest, so it tended to get discharged further than all the others every time until it finally would reverse while mowing. You could feel it and hear it in the motors, even a 2V overall drop is very noticeable in a 36V system. Eventually it would not come back. Fortunately, my local battery place sells "blems" - lightly used, reconditioned batteries - for only $45, so I got one of those to replace it. You will likely only be able to wring enough extra life out of that battery to last til you can buy yourself a used one to replace it.

Well, I think it something like that. I had an older ammeter and it read around 90A-110A while cutting grass. My new ammeter (old one took a dump) reads lower than that, more like 75A-90A while cutting. I'm not sure which one to trust. I do have a lot more belts and things than you do, so I have more losses that way. But, I am running a 48V system though, so that should reduce amp draw vs 36V.

I charge all my batteries separately via four Soneil chargers. Thats why I'm surprised this happened.

Have you tried to charge the battery to see if it rests at a normal 12.6+v after the charge to see if it survived or are you just declaring it dead because you drained it dry(and then some) once? Lead-acid batteries in general live short lives and its not uncommon to have an unexpected loss in capacity or otherwise early death. Even if you stopped the discharge before the voltage was pulled super low in the cell, the problem of a low capacity cell or two would most likely still be there just as it would be if it charged up okay for you to use it again. Seems to me that no matter how you look at it, this lead-acid battery took one for the team and will need to be replaced. I strongly support lithium but can see where its tough to justify its cost for a lawn mower especially when the cycle count is low and the expected life is generally expected to be higher because of that. I'm considering roughly a 1kwh LiPo pack to power my lawn mower, snow blower, and any other power tool using a 120v universal motor getting year round use out of it but $300+ is a tough pill for sure but I expect it would cover my full 1/4 acre lot of mowing and be plenty to chew through a driveway of about 9 inches of snow in one charge.

What do you plan to do going forward? Replace the bad 12v lead-acid battery with another?

I'll see if I can't fix it somehow. If I can, I'll see how it holds up. Its working as is right now, my run time is just lower. If I can't fix it, I'll replace it.

Lithium would be great, but we're talking around $1500-2000 for as much capacity as I would need/want (~16S, 100Ah). Then I'd have to look into a new charger too.

The low cycle count is the key here, I think lead will continue to work fine. I just really need to get that battery monitor hooked up so this doesn't happen again. I will be doing that sometime this fall. I still have to replace one of the chargers that went kaput on me too. I have the new charger, just haven't installed it yet. I'll take care of em both at the same time.

I took a little time on Friday night to take out the bad battery. I also got a new charger installed on it. So, I'm currently running 36V which will work fine.

This past Monday I went and picked up a new 12V battery for the mower. Last night, my wife and I installed it on the mower. We also sharpened the blades on the mowing deck after we removed the snowblower attachment. There are a couple more things to do to get it ready to go for the season like grease things up and clean up some wiring. It needs to happen soon, that grass isn't getting any shorter on its own! I'll get some pics up a little later.

I ran into another issue about a week ago. I sheared one of the bolts that holds the rear wheel to the axle. So, I removed the good side to see that the axle tubes are slotted pretty horribly. I'm now open to methods to repair the damage.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1410277064

You mean that oval slot should be a simple hole?

Turn 90 degrees and drill a new hole?

The damaged hole needs to be welded up first since it has taken out so much material. Remember that slot is on both sides.

When drilling the new hole, see if you can put a hardened bushing in the axle, or at least use a bigger bolt. The axle material is too soft and malleable, and the fit too loose, so the relatively hard bolt "wallers out" (that's a technical term :-) ) the hole. A tighter fit may also help.

The problem with drilling a new hole is that the hole is beyond the lip of the rim. So, I can't get a drill & drill bit in that far.

looking for direction
 

I have a toro proline 118 with a blown motor.
I often thought to convert it to an electric.
looks like you have a similar build.
I have only had random thoughts on how to do it.
How can I make a plan for this?

If you're mechanically inclined, its not too difficult. You have to find a way to mount an electric motor in place of the gas engine, and you have to find/make a place to mount a bunch of batteries.

Have you came up with a fix for the axle tubes? Looks like you're going to need to remove them from the rim, fix/replace, and weld them back in. Perhaps a holesaw in a a drill press the same size as the axle, cutting it from the backside? That way your not making the hole in the rim any bigger, and you can just weld in a new axle tube.

Here's an ancient farm tractor secret. You can't ask how I know, and I won't tell anyway.

Scrounge around and find some iron pipe that will barely try to slide around the axleshaft. If it gets stuck and won't go on far, that's ok. as long as the ID of the pipe is close to the OD of the shaft. Chop it down a couple or three inches long and drill your 3/8 or 7/16 inch holes through the center.

Using a sawzall, portaband, or band saw (or grinder with cutoff wheel, or cutting torch, or whatever...), cut the pipe straight down its length perpendicular to the direction of the through holes you just drilled. This will yield you two collars you can sandwich the axle tube and axle between. Test fit the collars onto the axle and shaft with a shiny new bolt, making sure there is a little wiggle room between the collars and the shaft: you don't want the collar halves wedging against each other, not even when they are tight. If stuff doesn't fit tightly, a ball peen hammer will convince the collar halves to submit. As long as the halves don't touch, they will self-center where they belong.

If you really want it to be permanent, paint or epoxy the axle where the collars will hide it and assemble wet. Tighten your bolt before the stuff sets up or skins, and once it does dry, it's almost as strong as a weld. I myself usually just spray paint everything once it is assembled tightly. It acts as loctite on everything.

Hope this helps,

Jeff