Coal-Powered Lawn Tractor

So wheres the coal come in? Unless you are talking about the power plant.

If so then some of us would have hydro electric powered lawn mowers, wind powered lawn mowers, or maybe even nuclear powered lawn mowers?

Oh ya, you know that wild little boy en each of us just perks up at the thought of engineering a nuclear powered riding lawn mower.

"So wheres the coal come in?"

Maybe the 'OP' meant to say "Kohler"-powered lawn tractor.

The 'coal' is from 'coal fired power plants'.

Coal is the most prevalent way to generate electricity in the USA, far exceeding all other power sources. So if you plug in and use electricity, you are indirectly using coal in a very inefficient manner (considering losses in the power production, transmission, and in final use).

Natural gas is a little cleaner. Hydro, solar, and wind are 'best' from an environmental perspective. Nuclear is dirty in a different way. Politics and public opinion change from time to time, but facts based on science (not 'pop-science') change very slowly.

This one and a good exercise does it on battery. One spare bettery needed.

The company that builds these for Toro could also go tractor.

[p] The photo didn't make it through here, but the link works with me.

Toro 20360 e-Cycler 20-Inch 36-Volt Cordless Electric Lawn Mower Buy new: $399.00[p][p]Bigger motor, bigger battery packs on a 42" frame.

6-8 12 volt batteries weigh about 240+ pounds, and occupy more space than the gas engine and transmission.

How about a battery trailer (cables to the mower motors)?

Seen similar to the TORO sold in Aus, but here they offer solar panel included instead of charger transformer.

From memory cheaper than the petrol mower, but limited to around 2 hours work per day. (Which is one reason why I think the next mower will be that type).

Full re-charge time is claimed to be around 10 hours, so I could get 2 hours on Saturday, have a few brews with the BBQ lunch, then another couple of hours mwoing on Sunday before the afternoon roast and wine.

I'm getting older and this would be one way to make sure I don't overdoo it.

Here in the USA, most of our electric power comes from coal, so a battery-powered lawn mower is actually a coal-powered mower (as will all the electric cars in our future).

No one addressed the technical question of: Can it be done? If Toro sells one in Australia, it must be possible. It takes me two hours to mow my one-acre lawn with the Cub Cadet, so that would work for me.

actually, you could power the gasoline engine mower from coal, woodchips or about any dry bio-material, During ww2, volkswagon built gassifier systems to power some of their cars. Search woodgas, or join yahoos woodgas group. There are several people now running their vehicles and generators from wood waste in the group on a daily basis. Fema even has plans posted for emergency woodgas systems, although the fema version will screw up your engine in a few hours of run tim, go figure,lol. Yahoo woodgas members have made several cross country trips, just on wood fuel.

To get an idea of using an electric drive motor, have a look at electric golf carts. The ones I am familiar with (EZ-GO brand) use six each 6 V batteries (sorry, don't have the AH ratings on these right now- check the EZ-GO website). Assuming you are not mowing a mountainside, I should think you could get a lot more than 2 hours out of this sort of setup. Adding a mower to the underside of one of these may be possible, or you might want to think in terms of a towed mower with it's own motor/battery set...I am not sure how difficult it would be to design a power take-off from the drive axle to drive the mower head on a golf cart, but it may be possible. I am also not sure how much power you need to drive the actual mower mechanism- that would require some study.

No one addressed the technical question of: Can it be done?

Yes it can be done, and has been done many times. Works fine. Look here for some ideas. On the second page of these listings, there is a GE E20, which was a production tractor that provided 2.5 to 3 hours mowing time.

There are several deep-cycle battery-powered multi-terrain vehicles out there. Get one of those and rig up a tri-pod hitch for 3 20-inch wide "push" mowers- driven by the wheels and gears- no motor- with an overlapping cut for about 48-54" wide cut. You will get the job done quicker, quieter and a lot more comfortably than straddling your Cadet.

Then, when you are done mowing the lawn, you can unhitch the mowers and use the vehicle as it was designed- cruising down the street (or sidewalk) to the local pub-malt shop-Dairy Queen (whatever suits your needs).

It would be possible to rig a solar charging station, a couple of solar modules on the roof of a storage shed and a simple charge controller. Just plug in the DC charging lines to the batteries whenever needed. If it is rigged right, with a proper charge controller, should be able to leave it plugged in all the time when not in use. I would suggest not even going to AC, and do it all DC. Running DC wires very far do have losses, needing bigger wire or doing the conversion to AC.

I have wondered how much energy it takes to build a solar module, so what the ROI would be on them.

GA Andy. At least for warm areas.

The problem is that in the north, the grass cannot be used to feed the goats all year round. You still need to cut grass in the summer and store it for winter feeding of your goat. The solution might be to eat it in the fall and buy a new one in the spring like the farmers used to do.

True!!

I think what you are describing was built by GE in the 70's. It was called the Elec-Track tractor with a mower in front. Check out elec-trak.com We sold them and they were popular with the people that wanted to cut the grass early in the monrning when everyone else was sleeping.

John Deere did it as well with their model 90.

http://tinyurl.com/28ap9co

Hustler currently makes one they call "Zeon"

http://tinyurl.com/2fscr42

I work with a older fella who owned an Electrack. His was struck by lightning. He says his insurance agent nearly sued him for fraud! Didn't believe there was such a thing.

Slow Old Poop,

I have several years experience with a second hand 42" cut electric riding mower. It was made over 3 decades ago by GE named "Elec-Trac" and it carried 6 large LA batteries like the modern EZ Go golf carts. It was built with old technology relays with staged ,3 speed, resistors for field weakening speed control of the brushed shunt wound traction motor. The mowing deck was inconveniently in front with three direct drive 36 volt motors. It would mow several acres if the grass was not too high in the 2 hours you suggest. It charged with a large integral ferro-resonant 115VAC supplied isolating charger in a few hours, but a hydrometer was the best capacity predictor. Corrosion around the battery compartment was a problem. The best part was the absence of oily exhaust, but the machine was very heavy; it was rugged compared with a modern riding mower. The complexity of the tractor was something only to be appreciated by an engineer and I think this and its high price were the reasons it was not a big marketing success. A set of batteries cost several times more than a new 10 HP Briggs And Stratton engine which explains why you don't see them still in service.

Regards,

Luther M

Now we are getting somewhere. Based on what I've seen so far, it looks like wheelchair batteries may be the way to go. Instead of buying an old wheelchair, though, what about just adapting an existing lawn tractor? I could buy an old tractor with a blown motor probably dirt cheap and go from there.

As for mowing it with a scythe or goats, I don't think my neighbors would appreciate it. It might work in Germany with their postage-stamp yards, but not on my one acre.

Many here have large areas of land, but they only cut what is needed, cutting it all for the sake of cutting is NOT environmentally friendly anyway.......let most of it return to nature!!!

I have a friend that did just that, but he lives in a more rural setting, and places where many live, the social climate does not allow 'not mowing'. In some areas that 'require mowing', choosing a slower growing species of grass or other ground cover might be more appropriate.

I have another friend that decided he needed to purchase over 100 acres for his family to live on, that way no one would expect him to keep that all mowed. ... He has planted, and harvested trees from much of it, but there are significant sink holes on his property so all the land is not tillable anyway.

Try this, Google "Electric Riding Lawn Mower" might give you some ideas, or places to buy one...

Yup, we had one back in the seventies. Since my older brother worked at a lawn and tractor place, he brought one of these home. It was OK. I don't think I would buy one though, because if you had a big yard, it wouldn't do the whole thing on one charge.

http://www.elec-trak.org/

This thing had four batteries under the hood and two under the seat. I don't think it would do an acre of lawn though. Half acre at a time probably.

Cheers !!

One have to realize the tremendous advantage that this application has to introduce new energy sources. It is not as glamorous than a car but it is much more accessible.

1-Only needs an hour or so of range.

2-Always near your own recharging station => no compatibility issues.

3-Nobody is in trouble if you don't finish the job on one charge. The work schedule can be adjusted by the owner. You don't need to cut twenty acres at a time.

4-Most law mowers pollute more than a small car. A low emission solutions would do real good.

Now, there are many posts on this site regarding new energy source that are difficult to apply to cars. They may work here:

A-Spring wound with a small electric motor. With enough gearing, we could get the spring loaded in a few hours. This would eliminate the nasty battery banks.

B-Compressed air could be used but is less efficient because of the large thermal exchanges.

C-Fly wheels.

D-Full or partial solar. Who cuts the grass in the rain anyway?

E-Wind energy anyone? The big blade at the top is geared up to rotate the blade underneath. Maybe difficult to cut near trees...

This could be a great project for the unfortunate ones who are unemployed at the moment. I would be willing to give some material and help to somebody working on something like that in Canada. I am sure that others would do the same in their regions.

Anybody ready to jump in?

Weed-eater used to sell a lawn mowing robot that was solar powered. It had a battery, but not much of one, just enough to get through a cloud going over or to mow under a tree. It was large and flat (think 20"x40" or so... that would be about 500x1000mm).

It was water proof, so you just left it in the yard during growing season. The problem is it didn't 'cut the lawn', it 'kept the grass cut'. Motors were light weight and wimpy power wise, but it seemed to work. Major problem was it was way to expensive for me :(

Still, I liked the concept.

Have you seen these yet?

http://www.husqvarna.com/us/homeowner/products/robotic-mowers/husqvarna-robotic-mowers-for-homeowners/

I was recently looking for a website with infos as to how energy efficient various battery types are and found a site that explained just how inefficient electric vehicles are, assuming coal fired power stations - which are still in the majority I am lead to believe.

24% efficient was the best figure........shockingly low.......and with a strong carbon footprint to boot (pun intended!)

So maybe running a petrol or diesel mower is not quite as unfriendly to the environment as we all (or at least me!) thought!!!

I have not marked this as Off Topic as I really feel that it is right On Topic with regards to an electric mower!!!!