Amish paradise
Each time I smoked a $500-1000 pack I was left wondering what the hell I was doing. All of these pack’s ends were glorious and also painful at the same time. I ended up smoking 3 BMS’s before I gave up on using a BMS with my 18650 pack and just wired it directly to the battery. Using a contactor and not having a motor controller becomes much more of an issue when you’re trying to run the tractor with a 18650 pack with a BMS. This kind of setup works pretty well with Lead Acid batteries which are designed to easily put out over 700 Amps for short bursts (it’s called cold cranking amps). You don’t need a motor controller with it, just a contactor (essentially a high amperage relay) and the motor just pulls whatever power it needs from the battery. It has the right shaft to mount the pulley on and at 48v nominal it runs at about the same RPMs as a normal gas motor. The Motenergy ME-1004 motor had a shim that needs to get removed with a crowbarĪfter looking around for an electric motor to put in the craftsman I ended up settling on the Motoenergy ME-1004 which is designed as a drop-in replacement for most lawn tractors. This article is about that journey and how we ended up with a 5000W Craftsman lawn tractor with a Motoenergy ME-1004 200 Amp motor and a custom-built 13S20P 60Ah 48v battery pack out of 18650 30Q cells.ĭisclaimer: This story includes a lot of horrid details, horrendous mistakes, and 3 destroyed BMSs so it’s not for the faint of heart. Last year we decided that we needed to build an electric lawn tractor both for mowing and for moving things around the property so we set a budget of $2000 to build something that would suit our needs that we could easily charge from our off-grid solar array. The answer is that you can do a lot more work than you think you can, especially if you’re not burdened down with a full-time job.
I’ve wondered how much my wife and I can accomplish with just our bodies and whatever electric-powered tools we can obtain or build. I’ve found a level of peace in my heart from hard work and sacrifice that I never thought I would ever have, and that has led me to the pursuit of having a farm without fossil-fueled machinery nor beasts of burden. We have hand grafted hundreds of fruit trees and moved many tons of soil, leaf matter and woodchips mostly by hand.
#AMISH PARADISE PATCH#
Every cool project needs a decent and terrifying paint job, Happy Halloween kiddiesįor the last several years my wife and I have gone from a single tiny patch of Asparagus to having Organic and Permaculture garden and orchard that is well over 2 acres of cultivated land.