[ausev] Hoping for some answers

[Will Holcomb]

I am trying to get to the point of asking good and specific questions.  I am pretty good as far as mechanical skills but electricity has always been a downfall for me.  That is one of the reasons I thought this would be a good project.  It would get me into an area where I need to learn more.

The mower has an 11hp B&S on it.  I can't remember the deck size right now.  Just the info you gave me here gives me a point to start from.  If I can go to 36V it would save on battery space.  I am not sure how much less power that would give me though.  I saw some other mowers that were 36V.




________________________________
From: Brian Lasseter <blasseter.cmpe01 at gtalumni.org>
To: AustinEV News Announcements and General Discussion <ausev at austinev.org>
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 11:13:51 AM
Subject: Re: [ausev] Hoping for so answers

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Will Holcomb <bigvortex at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I just joined this group in hopes of getting some answers.  I want to
> convert a riding lawn mower to electric.  It is throwing a rod and is too
> old to replace the engine cost effectively.  I really don't want to sink the
> money into a new mower.  So I thought converting this would be a good
> project.  I did some web searches and was surprised there was not more
> information on doing this.  I figured an EV group could point me in the
> right direction.  If this isn't a good place to get this help can someone
> point me to a place that is?

This is usually a good place for that, but you sometimes need to ask
specific questions to get answers.   If you would have shown up at the
meeting on Saturday you could have talked to people in person.

As for a riding lawnmower, how much power does it need to function?
(Torque, hp, whatever measurement is convenient... the instructions
for the mower might have specs on the gas motor.)

Also... removing the old engine would help to give you a feel of how
much space is in the mower for a conversion.  Just off the cuff, I
might think a 48VDC conversion would work... a cheap 48V Curtis golf
cart controller, and 4x12VDC Trojan golf cart batteries.  All that
with maybe a 6" motor?  It'd be hard to know more without knowing what
your goals are for the mower, or what the specs on the original motor
are.

Doing a cursory search through the EV Album http://www.evalbum.com/
for "mower" brings up quite a few hits... These are just the first few
of about 100:

Riding mowers...
  http://www.evalbum.com/1846
  http://www.evalbum.com/1522
  http://www.evalbum.com/2386

Non-riding mowers...
  http://www.evalbum.com/546
  http://www.evalbum.com/2088

-- 
TTFN,
Brian "Lasso" Lasseter

  ·  (512)736-1677  ·  AIM:digininja  ·  ICQ:2238123  ·  MSN:azoreg  ·
"No Sane man will dance."   -Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

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