Show me your solar powered tractors!!!

[JoelD]

When you see pictures like this you really see the superior strength these animals have!

Man can the get some work done

Also amazes me how they work willingly for us

My dad had to beg borrow and steal to get me to do much of any manual labor

Joel

 

[RDrancher]

Here is one I bookmarked a while ago. It isn't mine and not completely solar but supposedly can be recharged by solar with the PV roof in half a day with, I would suspect, direct sunshine. It isn't anything like pouring gallons of fuel in and going all day and night and I'm sure you all will scorn it because it recharges off the outlet as well, but this is the best one I have found being made so far. It would work for small farms and large gardens. Not something a farmer could really use except for select small jobs. Cultivating corn or something where it can recharge while working. I would like to have one but the price tag is crazy unless you are used to buying new. I buy used stuff that needs work so my tractor budget is normally very small.

Renewables.com

Interesting, but if you get caught out in a hail storm or accidentally smack that pretty "canopy" on a tree it'll cost you $8,000 to replace.

 

[SPYDERLK]

Yes the stock battery (without the aux. battery) was listed at 5KWH. so 5000 watts for an hour. so just under 7 horsepower for the period of 1 hour.. Of course on a battery you cannot really draw all 5000 watts in that 1 hour period... so even less. They said the stock PV cells would make 1000 watts. So 5 hours or more to charge it back up... I am doubting the 1000 watts from the array I saw, but maybe so.. Now with the 10,000 watt aux. battery. you could do a lot better, than the 5000 watt stock battery. but still the thing was a toy.. did you see it pulling a plow? NO you saw it pulling a man sitting on it in a low position planting seedlings. The talk of it pulling a mower for so many hours was highly optimistic. We have got to do better in battery tech. before an electric tractor ever becomes viable. Not saying we can't do it, just saying it aint here yet. We need 2 orders of magnitude better batteries and ways to charge them. The motors and controllers are pretty much ready to go now. For a field tractor we need a battery to deliver about 500 volts at about 100 amps and have a nearly flat discharge curve for about 10 hours at that rate. and it needs to be no bigger than about 3 foot by 3 foot cube and weight no more than 1500 lbs, and charge back up in under an hour. We could get by with half of that for smaller tractors. You bring me one of them and you and I are going into the electric tractor business, and we would have people busting down the doors to buy one. Until then..

James K0UA

Yeah ... and your projections gave the boon of 100% efficiency. The link makes claims of 90%. It takes a very good motor to achieve that. 70-80% range is kinda easy tho. I usually call it 1kW input for 1HP [746W] output. Realistic and easy. Any farm running a capable electric tractor would have to heavy up its electric service if they needed it every day. :confused3:
larry

 

[k0ua]

Yeah ... and your projections gave the boon of 100% efficiency. The link makes claims of 90%. It takes a very good motor to achieve that. 70-80% range is kinda easy tho. I usually call it 1kW input for 1HP [746W] output. Realistic and easy. Any farm running a capable electric tractor would have to heavy up its electric service if they needed it every day. :confused3:
larry

Agreed, there are losses in any system. Your estimates only puts 5 HP to the ground for 1 hour with the stock battery. That is quite a "tractor" and you know there is no way the battery could really discharge all 5000 watts in the hour, most lead acid cells have a 20 hour discharge rate for full rated output. As in a group 27 trolling motor battery, might be 12 volts at 80 amp hours. but if you think you are going to get 80 amps out of it for a full hour, well that is just a rating, for a actual 20 hour discharge cycle of 4 amps draw for 20 hours. Most people do not realize these things.

James K0UA

 

[Jay4200]

Would you rate this as HP or Woman Power.

Oh....THAT's what those things are for.

JayC

 

[Jay4200]

When you see pictures like this you really see the superior strength these animals have!

Man can the get some work done

Also amazes me how they work willingly for us

That's only because they don't know how to watch TV yet.

JayC

 

[psdx]

.

That's a very cool picture. Since it was captured while the horse was pulling, it's like you can almost see the movement. I forgot about the thread - like the picture a lot.

 

[looknlearn]

Yes the stock battery (without the aux. battery) was listed at 5KWH. so 5000 watts for an hour. so just under 7 horsepower for the period of 1 hour.. Of course on a battery you cannot really draw all 5000 watts in that 1 hour period... so even less. They said the stock PV cells would make 1000 watts. So 5 hours or more to charge it back up... I am doubting the 1000 watts from the array I saw, but maybe so.. Now with the 10,000 watt aux. battery. you could do a lot better, than the 5000 watt stock battery. but still the thing was a toy.. did you see it pulling a plow? NO you saw it pulling a man sitting on it in a low position planting seedlings. The talk of it pulling a mower for so many hours was highly optimistic. We have got to do better in battery tech. before an electric tractor ever becomes viable. Not saying we can't do it, just saying it aint here yet. We need 2 orders of magnitude better batteries and ways to charge them. The motors and controllers are pretty much ready to go now. For a field tractor we need a battery to deliver about 500 volts at about 100 amps and have a nearly flat discharge curve for about 10 hours at that rate. and it needs to be no bigger than about 3 foot by 3 foot cube and weight no more than 1500 lbs, and charge back up in under an hour. We could get by with half of that for smaller tractors. You bring me one of them and you and I are going into the electric tractor business, and we would have people busting down the doors to buy one. Until then..

James K0UA

I agree, but like I said, it is the best one being made so far that I have seen.