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Old 05-06-10, 06:42 AM   #151
Daox
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I've been emailing back and forth with some of the local EV guys. They all say I should resize my pulleys before worrying about cooling the motor down. I figured thats what they would say. I think I am going to look into borrowing a controller so I can dial in a speed that works good so I can go with the smallest pulleys possible. This in turn should bring my amperage draw down to the lowest possible as well and give me longer run times.

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Old 05-17-10, 07:53 AM   #152
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Mowed the grass this weekend. Boy was it thick. I could tell because my ammeter was reading higher than normal and my voltage was sagging lower than normal under load. Still, the mower did a great job going through it all, no problems at all.

After cutting I did take some time to go over the mower. I greased up the fittings and removed the drive belt. I'll be picking up another correctly sized one tonight so it doesn't slip anymore. I also figured out why I don't have any brakes and will get that fixed with a trip to the hardware store as well.

Now, I just need to borrow a tach from one of the EV group members so I can correctly size my next set of pulleys.

I'm also contemplating bumping my voltage up to 48V to reduce the amps the motor draws. I'm not sure how much smaller of a pulley I'll be able to go with, so that is the alternative. I don't want to keep running the motor at such high amp loads. Sooner or later the heat will kill it.
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Old 06-04-10, 10:26 AM   #153
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Well, disaster struck about a week ago. It was my own fault. I had a battery literally explode on me. I had gotten a new drive belt and hooked up the brake finally, so I took it for a spin around the yard to see how it worked. I also decided to see what 3rd gear would do with the new belt. It took the front wheels off the ground. My face was very much like this: . Anyways, I took it back to the garage and wanted to test out my new hydrometer which tests the state of charge of the battery, way more accurate than a voltmeter. Anways, I was peeling off one of the covers and there was an explosion. Apparently (and I obviously didn't know this) batteries let off hydrogen gas while in use as well as when charging. I knew about the charging part, but not about the in use part. So, it blew a 2" hole in the side of the battery case, another 1.5" hole in the top of the case along with multiple other cracks and acid all over the place. Thankfully all I got was a little scratch from the cover hitting my arm. A box of baking soda later and the mess was contained. I'll get pics up later of the battery.

Anyway, I ordered another two batteries. While talking with the EV club guys, I decided it would be better to bump the voltage up. This not only will give me more than 30% more run time, but it will also lower the amperage to the motor which had been running warm. So, I'll be killing tow birds with one stone. Now, I REALLY need to get new pulleys.
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Old 06-04-10, 01:04 PM   #154
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Glad nothing worse than a scratch happened.

I'd never heard of gassing from discharging, myself. And the online references I found to it aren't particularly quality ones either.

How long had it been since you had charged up?

Regardless, we really should be wearing safety goggles at a minimum working around batteries. (I'm guilty of not taking precautions.)

Also: woo for 48v!
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Old 06-05-10, 07:00 AM   #155
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Heres the pic of the battery. Yeah safety glasses probably wouldn't be a bad idea...




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Old 06-05-10, 07:10 PM   #156
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That's kinda scary! What do you think triggered it to explode? Was there some source of ignition (static discharge, spark, cigarette)?
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Old 06-05-10, 07:46 PM   #157
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My only guess would be static. The covers fit pretty snug, so I guess the rubbing created the static. All I know is let it sit for a while before taking covers off now!
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Old 06-06-10, 08:52 PM   #158
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New member here. I just finished reading your thread on the electric mower. I am considering doing the same with my old Toro 8-32. I saw the pic you posted early on of your property. I was wondering how big the area you are mowing is. It looks to be about 2 acres. I was wondering because I am trying to determine how much mower I will need to build to mow my 1/2 acre less buildings.

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Old 06-07-10, 06:31 AM   #159
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Welcome to the site toolingjim. Wow, you're right down the road from me.

Anyways, the lawn is a little under an acre, but it feels like more than that. Perhaps because its so spread out? My current battery pack is roughly 5.4 kWh. Below is a picture of the current chunks I do the lawn in.

I'm sure that this will change once I get the extra battery on the mower as I'll have 30% more capacity and pulling less amps from the batteries also makes them last longer. I'm hoping to go from a run time of ~25 minutes to ~35 minutes.

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Old 06-11-10, 09:44 AM   #160
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The batteries are here if I didn't mention that already. However, now I have a problem with charging 4 batteries instead of just 3 batteries. Previous to this, I would usually mow before noon on the weekend. After mowing, I would put a 2A charger on one battery and a 10A charger on another battery. By the end of the night, the 10A charger would be ready to go to the next battery and the 2A charger just stayed on the one battery overnight. This would allow me to get the second charger in by the next day for mowing again.

So, I am looking into chargers that will allow me to do the same thing. The only thing is I have one more battery to charge, so I won't be able to charge overnight now and mow the next day. That means I need more/faster chargers. Right now I have my sights on buying two Soneil 1214S chargers. They are only 7A, but have a slew of nice features. They do run about $70 each, but seeing as how I've already blown the budget for this project with the new batteries, I might as well just get it running real nice now. These chargers would allow me to just plug in and forget about the mower until it was charged.

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