ning
Elite Member
My wife does a lot of weeding, trimming and pruning, and generates a lot of yard waste; this gets put into a simple garden cart (10 cu ft) which is currently pulled behind our aged lawn tractor.
That lawn tractor as noted is old, and it's noisy, stinky, and lots of starts and stops just moving the cart a bit here and there is tough on its battery.
I have in mind something electric (battery EV) that can pull it around the land; that would allow her to move the cart fifteen or fifteen hundred feet to the next work spot if she wants with no bother about starting it, worry about leaving it running because it's just a quick stop or not, etc.
Range is a very low requirement - we've got 8 acres and this thing really only needs to do a few loops of the land at the most between charges - like, a mile - so it doesn't need a lot of battery capacity, and it definitely doesn't need a lot of power - just a nicely geared-down drive system that allows say 1-5mph speed. The land is bumpy enough that I don't expect it to need to go much faster than that.
Those requirements, of course, rule out pretty much everything on the market. An electric UTV with a dump bed would be pie-in-the-sky ideal, but they're way bigger than we want (one person capacity and narrower would be better) and have way more capability (30+mph, miles and miles of range) and way way way more cost.
I'll deal with dumping the cart instead of a dump bed, and the rest of the unit... I've been coming to basically an off-road go cart, converted to electric, with a welded-on trailer hitch. Probably gear it way down in the conversion process, which should make pulling the trailer trivial (the trailer never gets more than a hundred pounds anyways, and she's light, and I'm not particularly heavy either if I need to use it). The low-slung nature of a go-kart, with bigger wheels & tires on the off-road version, is appealing for stability as well.
Anyone here play with off-road go carts much? I see some cheap electric versions, but they seem really small even the "for adults and teenagers", though it would probably be fine for my wife. Still wouldn't mind something slightly bigger...
This is probably one of those "someday I'll do this" projects.
That lawn tractor as noted is old, and it's noisy, stinky, and lots of starts and stops just moving the cart a bit here and there is tough on its battery.
I have in mind something electric (battery EV) that can pull it around the land; that would allow her to move the cart fifteen or fifteen hundred feet to the next work spot if she wants with no bother about starting it, worry about leaving it running because it's just a quick stop or not, etc.
Range is a very low requirement - we've got 8 acres and this thing really only needs to do a few loops of the land at the most between charges - like, a mile - so it doesn't need a lot of battery capacity, and it definitely doesn't need a lot of power - just a nicely geared-down drive system that allows say 1-5mph speed. The land is bumpy enough that I don't expect it to need to go much faster than that.
Those requirements, of course, rule out pretty much everything on the market. An electric UTV with a dump bed would be pie-in-the-sky ideal, but they're way bigger than we want (one person capacity and narrower would be better) and have way more capability (30+mph, miles and miles of range) and way way way more cost.
I'll deal with dumping the cart instead of a dump bed, and the rest of the unit... I've been coming to basically an off-road go cart, converted to electric, with a welded-on trailer hitch. Probably gear it way down in the conversion process, which should make pulling the trailer trivial (the trailer never gets more than a hundred pounds anyways, and she's light, and I'm not particularly heavy either if I need to use it). The low-slung nature of a go-kart, with bigger wheels & tires on the off-road version, is appealing for stability as well.
Anyone here play with off-road go carts much? I see some cheap electric versions, but they seem really small even the "for adults and teenagers", though it would probably be fine for my wife. Still wouldn't mind something slightly bigger...
This is probably one of those "someday I'll do this" projects.
