[Reid_in_QC]

Battery pack assembly nearly complete. At least the bulky bits are all in the box. Still a bit of wiring and a few smaller components to install in the top of the box but the tricky part is done and the results look good. Here are some pics.

• The first image shows the pack with the divider shelf and both layers of battery modules installed but no covers on.
• Next a top view showing balance wires from downstairs layer linking to upstairs balance buses.
• Next a view from the side with all the connections. PG-21 for main power cables to SB350 connector, smaller XT-90 for power from external balance charger when I want to use it, 16-pin balance connector for same, 4-pin for 12V supply and on/off signal to active cell balancer board, and lastly, 4-pin for data from active balancer to dash display.
• then a pic of installation onto the tractor by forklift (300+ lbs)
• and finally a view with the lid installed and propped open

Now there's just a lot of wiring to tackle

~ reid

 

[Reid_in_QC]

more progress on main battery assembly. All the balance wiring, fuses, thermostat, and the active balance gizmo are now installed. Balance wiring is completed for active balancer and also aux balance port to use external charger for top balance as needed (seen sitting on fender in one pic).

Power cabling to sort out now and comm wire for balancer display that will actually live up in the dash rather than back here in battery case.

Then the real wiring starts in the tight confines of the controller enclosure and the control and dash zones.

~ reid

 

[major]

Hi reid,

From photos, you have a #10/12 black wire fused at 500 amps. Other side of fuse has 2 much larger cables attached. This doesn't seem right.

Regards,

major

 

[Reid_in_QC]

Hi reid,

From photos, you have a #10/12 black wire fused at 500 amps. Other side of fuse has 2 much larger cables attached. This doesn't seem right.

Regards,

major

The photo shows a very temporary and incomplete setup for power wiring and fusing. I'll finish up the power wiring tonight and send a better pic. I just needed to tap into main battery negative to activate the balancer and test it. The #10 wire is only to carry a 40A max load (fused at 85 with mini ANL) from aux charger to main battery neg. Main power cabling for 500A fuse not complete in photo.

But thanks for keeping an eye on me anyway.

 

[Reid_in_QC]

OK. Here it is with power cabling installed and perhaps a bit more obvious logic to the fuse and wiring layout.

The big ANL fuse gathers the 4 main negatives from the pack and fuses them at 500A while connecting to the 2/0 cable heading out of the box to an SB350. Positives are gathered by a combination of crimp and clamp unions to make 4 into 2 into 1.

There's a 10ga accessory line grafted into the main positive cable on the way out - it's for the aux charger port (XT90). The negative from this charger port goes through the 80A mini-ANL fuse and then the big ANL fuse before reaching battery connections.

I'm sure the layout could be more elegant or better optimized but it worked ok to my mind and I'm not building 3 of these so the slow assembly is not the end of the world.

~ reid

 

[Reid_in_QC]

My last post appears to date from 05-02-19 and today is 06-02-19 so one month has elapsed and in that time.... I FINALLY GOT THE DAMN THING RUNNING!

In fact I was out weeding crops on our farm with it last Thursday and Friday and will be back out again as soon as the weather permits.

I still have several little wiring details to work out and need to improve cooling air flow in the control box but the whole thing works.

I must confess that there were almost 3 full days of troubleshooting even after main wiring was complete and there was at least one evening where I went to sleep feeling that I just wasn't going to succeed and that I had "bitten off more than I could chew" but ultimately I had new ideas in the morning and simply pulled the controller and rebuilt a dummy setup on a workbench to test from simplified up and finally got the controller behaving as it should.

I still have lots of work to do guessing at and testing controller variables to tune to the motor and setup (regen to reverse is presently rough to the point of being unusuable for instance) but that can all happen gradually over time.

I owe big thanks to Michel Caya at A1 machinery for letting me scavenge a spare Yale/Hyster pedal pot on a Saturday after I toasted mine at 40V like a dumbass.

Also big thanks to Bob Meyers at FSIP for saving me a load of cash by providing cable pinout and part nos to change over the cable connector on my GE LX-handset without having to pay full price and wait a week for said cable from FSIP. If I ever need paid work on a controller they've won my business already by helping out free of charge when they could.

Attached pics of control wiring including bench test and "final" installation in box on tractor.

Initial results suggest that I can get about 6 to 7 kW out of the motor at 40V and that the coulomb counter works adequately well as battery SOC indicator. Current draw tends to be around 150 to 200A under load and the tractor definitely doesn't lack power.

Primary irritants so far are that the transmission is noisy as hell and that the transmission and differential both drip oil excessively despite complete rebuild with new bearings and seals. Oh well, stupid old crap!

I must admit that the relief and satisfaction I felt during initial field tests and successful weeding trials were... substantial.

Thanks to everyone who offered support, assistance and encouragement here and elsewhere.

And here are a couple videos of the tractor in shop test and finally in the field:

 

[Reid_in_QC]

Alright! Only 2,5 weeks since my previous post and I've long since called this project complete, trained an employee to operate it and moved on to other things!

The project was a total success, with only the high hour count as a detractor, and now the tractor is in use a couple times a week, whenever there are spots on our farm that need mechanical or flame weeding. When we need it it's ready and good to go. I've pushed it a few times and am starting to have some performance data but without getting into the details too much it's doing great. I never seem to run down the batteries before I run out of work and the 1.5kW charger can rebuild charge fast enough to make a meaningful contribution even over lunch hour if we needed. I've pushed instantaneous output to 15kW briefly but standard load for weeding tasks is more like 5kW which is the motor's nameplate rating at 36V. I've only recently managed to work it hard enough to get the motor case warm to the touch and I also finally remembered to put some open-cell foam (old 1970s speaker grille) on the air intake for motor cooling so it won't aspire too much dust in the air that runs across the comm.


I had to add another air vent to the control box to exhaust heat generated by the charger but it was positioned such that it wasn't too terrible. I trimmed out access and made an aluminium shroud that reaches in to the charger and allows it to exhaust directly to the outside rather than delivering heat into the case where it was too slowly removed.

Photos show some of the final rewiring hassles and then some field tests, the final crooked spray of the Hefty-E rising replacing the Hefty-G moniker and then the new vent for charger heat as yet another triumph of CAD (cardboard-aided design).

Youtube videos below show the tractor in service, including flame thrower... err, I mean flame weeder!

Thanks to everyone who provided support and inspiration on this project. Our farm is more functional, more efficient and happier as a result of this EV project!

 

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Amazing, i love it.

Thanks for coming back and giving us all an update. It's great to see someone finish and use a project. Upping that completion ratio

Looks great and gets used, does it's job. Great success.

 

[Reid_in_QC]

Thanks for the kudos Matt.

It got me thinking that one cool thing about this project is that you actually can't yet buy an OEM electric cultivating tractor. Steve Heckeroth is close to offering one through his company Solectrac but I'm worried he may not have made enough room for modern belly-mounted weeding tools. Other manufacturers such as Tuff-bilt claim they've got an electric version in the works but there's I don't see any evidence of any being available for purchase yet.

A lot of other farmers have performed electric repower jobs on this kind of tractor over the years - I know of 5 good electric conversions in my region and apparently there are more than 100 Allis Gs converted by their owners and others, largely thanks to the pioneering work of Ron Khosla who produced a guide (which I can't find online presently) on how to convert an Allis Chalmers model G to battery-electric power many years ago. There aren't a lot of resources for other models of tractor which is part of my motivation for documenting my work on this Hefty.

I'm collecting this info here in case someone new to the field finds my project first and doesn't know the background but the short story is that as of 2019 it seems you still have to do your own conversion or have someone do it for you to get an electric cultivating tractor. This is unfortunate because it really is such a great solution for these machines and the vast majority of farmers who want to use this kind of tractor for mechanical weed control are organic farmers who would love to burn less fuel and have more efficient and pleasant tools for their work.

~ reid