PreConversionEngine RemovedSwitches and Charging PlugFront Battery fits under the hood.Coupler & original pulley shaft from ICEPulley installedMotor InstalledBatteries in the trailer (1st Iteration)Finished. 1st time. Now changed.
OwnerDouglas Stansfield
Owner's Other EVs2003 Hyundai Tiburon
2013 Nissan Leaf
2013 Ford C-Max Energi
LocationWantage, New Jersey United States map
Web/EmailWebPage email image
Vehicle2000 Murray 42 Inch
Had this mower for about 9 or 10 years. Not sure of the actual year I bought it. Kids were cutting the grass and the oil drained out of it and the 17hp motor seized. Oh well, I wanted to make it electric anyway.
Motor Club Car Golf Cart Motor Separately Excited DC
Got this baby used off Ebay. Nice and cheap. Fabricated an adapter plate and coupler using the pulley off of the old ICE motor. $60 from the machinist...Well worth it since the motor only cost $40.
DrivetrainStock. Not changing a thing on the mower except the motor and the on/off switch. Everything else will be the same. Plan on having the safety switch all working when finished.
Controller NONE
None needed. Don't need to complicate this as the hydrostatic trans on the mower will vary the speed and the original gas motor ran at a constant speed. Thus at 48volts this baby should do fine.
Batteries3 C & D Technologies C&D Telecom x2 and 1 Deka Dominator (under seat), 12.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, AGM
Used Telecom batteries to start. I had these my EV and a friend gave me some Gel Cells. I put the Gel Cells in the EV and will put the Telecom batteries in the Lawn Mower.
System Voltage36 Volts
Charger Made my own Bad Boy 36 v Charger....
Took apart a busted charger and used the transformer out of it. Waiting for a Bridge Rectifier to come in the mail. The Plug is already seen on the dash. Located there saves running more wires all over the place plus there is room under there to mount the transformer.
HeaterMaybe I will ad in AC at some point. HEHE....
DC/DC Converter
None
InstrumentationUsing a cheap Harbor Freight Multimeter.
Top Speed2 MPH ( 3 KPH)
It is slower than the old ICE and has less overall power than the ICE version. Doesn't matter. It cuts the grass the same.
AccelerationIt is slower than the ICE version but it doesn't burn any gas!!!! NO SATURDAY TRIPS into town to buy 5 gallons of gas that stinks up the car on the way home!!!
RangeI have 2 acres of land to cut. The back yard is flat and the front yard is a rolling hill. The electric doesn't like the hill much and it slows down some. I think I might have to use the other gasser on the front yard and the electric on the flat back yard. I will test and see if it is feasable on the front.
Watt Hours/MileNot appropriate for this...How many miles around the yard? Unknown and don't care.
Seating Capacity1 fat guy....
Curb Weight0
About 100 to 200 pounds over stock weight. The telecom batteries weigh 100lbs a piece!!
TiresStock original mower tires.
Conversion Time1st iteration took about 2 weeks. Another 2 weeks to fine tune it. I originally had the batteries in a trailer and pulled them around. Didn't like that set up and moved the batteries all onto the mower itself.
Conversion CostAs low as possible. I had the batteries and I had the mower so the total cost I am hoping to be lower than $200.

$40 SEPEX Golf Cart Motor Ebay
$60 Coupler Creation
$40 of Wire
$40 48v Switch
$20 cable ties, multimeter, etc.
Additional FeaturesBecause this motor is a SEPEX I have to turn on the Field windings first and give them juice. I do that by turning on a Battery Switch first that activates the field. Then the main switch on the dash controls the armature and can stop or start the motor spinning. This works well.
4-11-2010 After hooking this all up IT DOESN'T WORK YET.... The motor spins but as soon as a load is put on it, it stops. Not a problem with the batteries. They are all load tested and fine. Not sure the cheap used motor is doing what it should be doing. This is a golf cart motor that should take fat golfers up hills and around a golf course. It appears to have less power than my vacuum cleaner at present. Will have to take it back apart and find out why this is happening. Stay Tuned.

4-23-2010 ALL FIXED and Working!!! Turns out the initial problem I had was the motor was not Spiral Wound like I thought but a SEPEX motor. This required rewiring and I put 36v to the field separately than the armature which also gets 36v. Pulley came loose once so I used "blue" LocTite on the set screws and it hasn't happened again.

4-27-2010 Rewired the Field and Armature to sit at 12v for the Field and 36v for the Armature after some wise council from the EVDL guys. Runs very well now and I have a separte harbor freight meter for the field and for the armature and I am waiting for an ammeter to come in the mail from Ebay to see how many amps I am sucking during the cutting process. Here I am pre-rewire but I did end up cutting the back yard with it this way and it worked great!!! WebPage

TOO MUCH FUN TO HAVE AN EV GRIN ON YOUR LAWN MOWER!!!

code by jerry