Awesome project.
My simplicity riding mower is about to have the same modification. I have the GM alternator on a bracket, and I simply have to find time to mount it underneath the mower and wire it up to a large two-wire connector on the back of the body of the unit. I won't be using mine to weld, but rather to power "accessories" that are hitched to the mower.
This started from when my mower deck decided to dismantle itself in a violent manner, and my refusual to pay $750 for a new mower deck. So what i've done is removed all the mowing deck apperatus off the deck itself, clean it up, and now I have a large 12V electric motor almost ready to be installed on that deck, with a square tubing cage and pneumatic wheels. Electric mower trailer ;-)
Once I take the body off the simplicity again, I can re-fangle up the trailer hitch so it can be a hitch for various things, but also a suitable structure for mounting things. Then using compressed air or electricity, I can build various useful accesories and make this toy riding mower more tractor-like in function, just on a much smaller scale.
Already have a 12V motor, gearbox, and greased wormscrew that once I put on the four-wheeled Lowes Garden Cart (good to 1000lbs they say, yeah right) and re-frame that, I'll have a dumpable trailer. My wife and I extended the patio with more blocks, which most of the manpower being wasted shoveling gravel and sand out of the back of my pickup, into the lawn cart, then dragging it around to the back of the house, then reshoveling it out of the cart, to where it was needed. Would have been a lot easier to shovel it into the cart, then just dump it where desired. Since I have more projects like this, making the dumpable, 12V powered cart is a desirable thing. Reworking the cart is good too because I've put 1000lbs into it, and the frame has bent indicating Lowes lied ;-)
I can see building small diggers, maybe a snow plow with electric raise/tilt function, that sorta stuff.
I'm going to get compessed air onto my mower as well, using a just rebuit AC compressor out of an old fridge. I never saw the fridge, but the compressor was free and the pulley to drive it is on the bottom, meaning I can attach it to the same belt as the alternator, driving both from the vertical shaft simplicity engine. Obviously, I won't have enough HP to drive both the compressor and the alternator at the same time, 5HP gets used up very quickly, but at least it's a dual-capable power source for other things.
And, I have a larger vertical shaft engine that looks like with a little "adjustment' of the body, I could put in if I really had to.
The welder idea you put together is fabulous.
What did you do for current control, or did I miss that part of the post?
