In 1980 sailing down the West Coast, discovered a need for battery charging, built a small wind turbine using a tape drive motor and a granger fan blade, on arrival in San Diego, studied some aerodynamics and developed a 4ft blade. Great success, over the next 3 years sold over 600 of them to fellow yachties. Re entered civilization working in the construction field. 1999 sold the house bought a bus and wandered around the South & West, used PV panels extensively found that the wind turbine was good at attracting visitors to our rig, but not much else.
Then in 2010 bought a small property and commenced to build a home, found a dead garden tractor and installed a 24Volt series motor with 4 LA golf cart batteries. The tractor "Sparky" has been a huge asset, has a 8Xforklift on the front, added hydraulic steering, has lifted 6X8 beams and columns carried wet cement from mixer to forms tows everything we have ever tried to pull.
Sadly the motor is now shot, and I put a massive dead short on the batteries, melting some of the terminals before I could rip off the cable.
SO, my plan right now to get the tractor working again (we do not need it like we used to but it is kinda cool), even had it in the town parade one year, is to pick up a leaf battery complete, break it down and build a 90 volt +/- pack and use it to power a dc tread mill motor rated at 4 hp via a pwm Existing motor is 2.5hp and had lots of power.
Have a spare 80 Volt Greenworks battery charger and wonder if anyone can tell me how to use it as a charger for the tractor. The charger will have to be fooled into thinking there is a battery mounted as it needs to see the BMS of the battery. My best idea is to drill the charger case and tap into the charging leads to feed the tractor and put a Greenworks battery on the charger to fool it, ideas will be welcome, also thoughts about the Leaf Modules would be welcome.
Once the tractor is up and running again, I would like to put a smaller treadmill motor on a reverse freighter trike that I bought in Mexico, I can mount the leaf modules under a seat on the cargo part and drive the rear wheel with the treadmill motor. did try using a tape drive motor on the trike with 36 volts of LA batts, took it around the block it would just move the trike on the flat, did well down hill and up hill just added to the work load of pedaling the weight.
My comfort level is much higher with mechanical systems and this old dog struggles with electrics.
Anyroad, finding this site is exciting for me hope, I do not come across as a windy ole fart.
Regards, Ynot.
Then in 2010 bought a small property and commenced to build a home, found a dead garden tractor and installed a 24Volt series motor with 4 LA golf cart batteries. The tractor "Sparky" has been a huge asset, has a 8Xforklift on the front, added hydraulic steering, has lifted 6X8 beams and columns carried wet cement from mixer to forms tows everything we have ever tried to pull.
Sadly the motor is now shot, and I put a massive dead short on the batteries, melting some of the terminals before I could rip off the cable.
SO, my plan right now to get the tractor working again (we do not need it like we used to but it is kinda cool), even had it in the town parade one year, is to pick up a leaf battery complete, break it down and build a 90 volt +/- pack and use it to power a dc tread mill motor rated at 4 hp via a pwm Existing motor is 2.5hp and had lots of power.
Have a spare 80 Volt Greenworks battery charger and wonder if anyone can tell me how to use it as a charger for the tractor. The charger will have to be fooled into thinking there is a battery mounted as it needs to see the BMS of the battery. My best idea is to drill the charger case and tap into the charging leads to feed the tractor and put a Greenworks battery on the charger to fool it, ideas will be welcome, also thoughts about the Leaf Modules would be welcome.
Once the tractor is up and running again, I would like to put a smaller treadmill motor on a reverse freighter trike that I bought in Mexico, I can mount the leaf modules under a seat on the cargo part and drive the rear wheel with the treadmill motor. did try using a tape drive motor on the trike with 36 volts of LA batts, took it around the block it would just move the trike on the flat, did well down hill and up hill just added to the work load of pedaling the weight.
My comfort level is much higher with mechanical systems and this old dog struggles with electrics.
Anyroad, finding this site is exciting for me hope, I do not come across as a windy ole fart.
Regards, Ynot.
