Re: (ET) Lift motors from cars - Superwinch

["Joel Parks" <et jpjt net>]

I got my E15 in November with a dead lift and a bunch of parts I stripped
from another, rusted out E15.  Luckilly for me the lift motor I stripped 
out
was working, so in the process of converting the machine to use Alltrax, I
swapped lifts.  Then I had a little mis-hap which turned out to be caused 
by
the fusible link getting so hot that it melted/burned the insulation on and
shorted out a bunch of wires that were touching it.  I guess both the up 
and
down wires got 18V for some period of time.  Since I already had the other
lift out of the machine, I opened it up and figured out that the reason it
wasn't working was because one of the brushes was shot.  So I had my first
experience with lift motor repair, eventually found some brushes that had a
heavy enough "shunt" wire that I could cut down and make fit.  I swapped it
out and things were fine for the last couple of snow storms.  Then one day
after the snow melted I spent about 10 minutes driving around the yard with
my 3-yr old on my lap.  Nothing attached to the lift.  No reason for
anything to have changed on the lift motor, since I didn't touch the
switch - but the next time I tried it it wasn't working anymore.  So I
opened up the "spare" lift motor to see if I could fix it, and it was fried
inside.  I mean, the insulation on the wires literally looked like fried 
egg
white, bubbled and toasted.  Didn't look particularly salvageable.

I never got around to looking at the motor that had mysteriously stopped
working - I had lost faith with that power window motor technology.

I spent a while looking at Ebay for winches, keeping in mind the advice I
had seen about "power-out as well as power-in" and decided I needed a Warn
1500 or equivalent or copy, but I was too cheap to buy the Warn or
Superwinch and too nervous about quality to buy the chinese copy.  Then I
realized that I had a winch attached to an old SnowBear snowplow I had
foolishly bought at BJ's a few years back that didn't work out for me, and
that I hadn't been able to sell.  Took a closer look and lo-and-behold, 
it's
a small Superwinch, probably a 1500.  So I unmounted that and drilled a
couple of holes in the front plate "grille" just below the GE logo and
bolted the winch on the front.  It sticks out the side a couple of inches,
which precludes mounting it below - it interferes with the snowblower
mounting bracket. Hooked up the fused switch wires through the main
disconnect (ET OEM) to the front two batteries (after deciding that it was
too fast, too loud and I was too nervous to leave it hooked up to 18V).  It
had some sort of chain holder bolted over the hub instead of steel wire
cable, so I bought 15 feet of 1" tubular nylon webbing at EMS for $0.65 / 
ft
and sewed loops into each end and used a split-ring key ring in one end to
make the loop over the winch hub (I guess I could have looped it through
itself, didn't think of that till just now).  Now this winch is fast, and
powerful.  I hooked the snowblower back up just to see how it worked, and
with the usual 2:1 reduction gained from threading the strap under the
roller on the snowblower and attaching it back up at the original
"fairlead", it quickly and easily raised the blower  - no more of the
groaning and creaking of the old lift motor.

Only big problem so far is that it occupies some of the space needed by the
snowblower discharge chute when the blower is lifted; I could only lift it
high enough to just get the dolly it's stored on out from under.  And 
that's
not  high enough for normal plowing use. So I need a new location.  I'm
thinking about cutting a big hole in the right side of the front 
compartment
just above the transformer, since I've already removed the field-weakening
resistors.  Then I could mount the winch on the inside of the front plate
"grille" with the end of the motor protruding about 3 or 4 inches out the
right side and the wires attached thereto sneaking back inside, and feed 
the
strap through a opening with fairlead roller(s?) I'd have to create in the
grille.  But I'm nervous about that too, since it will result in big gaping
holes if something about this experiment doesn't pan out, and there's no
such clearance problem when lifting the mower.  I don't think there will be
with the dozer blade but I haven't tried yet.  So I have a few months to
worry about the alternatives.  Not to mention I haven't figured out with
what I will cut the requisite holes.... a hacksaw seems like such a hack..
a file will take too long.  Some combination of the two is probably the
answer, plus pilot holes using the drill. I'm sure I'm not going to be
unbolting and unriveting it and taking it to a machine shop to get it 
milled
=)

comments and suggestions and criticism welcome...

Joel
ps. And I had no idea OEM ET lift motors are still available anywhere - are
they?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Zach" <czach computer org>
To: "Elec-trak list" <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2005 5:34 PM
Subject: (ET) Lift motors from cars


> Ok. In an effort to fix my real lift, I went out on Ebay and got a deal:
> 4 window motors from a 1971 Buick. All were in pretty close to perfect
> shape. All for $20.00+15.00 shipping.
>
> What a deal. I'm sure everyone thought these would be great cheap
> substitutes for the stock elec-trak lift motors:
>
> Forget it.
>
> I put one together last night. Hummed perfectly at 12 volts on the
> bench. Took off the gear system, changed the brushes to support a third
> wire instead of ground, drilled a hole in the side of the unit, and ran
> the wire. Packed it up, and tested it again.
>
> Perfect.
>
> So I filed down the case protrusion so it would work in the rear lift.
> Simple job. Once done I mounted it to the rear lift, hooked it up to the
> tractor and tested it no load.
>
> Quick. Very nice, very strong. So I hooked it up to the tractor. Mind
> you it has an internal breaker, and I had it on a 30 amp fuse to 18
> volts of the rear batteries.
>
> BOY does this thing lift the tiller. No problem, hauls it right up. That
> should have been my clue; nothing works that well.
>
> So I did a row or two, lift died. Drove back to the shed, took the motor
> off, ran it on 12 volts. Very slow, very high current. Opened it up.
>
> The armature wires are badly burned. Commutator (which was clean when I
> put it in) was black from carbon arcing. The resistance of the field was
> half what it should have been and most of the windings looked burned.
> This was from a few minutes.
>
> My guess is that GE wired the motors to handle 18 volts by rewinding the
> armatures and stator coils. Or maybe just the armatures. Whatever they
> did, the stock 12 volt motors can't be run at 18 volts. They will be
> carbonized as sure as 18 volt lift motors are at 24 volts.
>
> I'm going to try and build another motor and run it on a 12 volt tap.
> Might work better, but my guess is the lift power will be less, the amp
> draw will be more, etc.
>
> The right solution is to pay $$$ for a new GE lift motor :-) Anyone else
> have a running Buick window motor?
>
> Chris
>
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