[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: (ET) Elec-trak snow thrower performance

MakingLightning wrote:

I have an Elec-trak snow thrower and an E15 but have never hooked the 2 up
and used them.
Time to do it then. Remember to double back the lift strap; that thing is heavy. 


I was wondering what kind of performance and experiences that any of you
have had with them. Do they get plugged at all? What happens when you 
really
load them down too much, a gas one just groans and will stall at worst. 
What
kind of snow can they handle? Do they throw it as good as a gas one?


I love mine. Used it last winter with 2 feet of snow; it ate right thru it.
Yes, they can get plugged. One problem is that the throat gets rusty over the years and thus "rough". Then snow will stick to the throat and clog the unit. Wet snow is the worst, dry is great.
The solution to this for me was to use POR15 paint in the thrower throat. POR15 is a very slick, pretty much indestructable paint. Goes right over rust and dries smooth as glass. The result is so smooth that snow doesn't stick to it. When it does plug you can just shut down the blower, and push the plug right out of the chute...
Another trick is to keep the auger *full*. Don't sit there in LL, go for L at speeds 5-6. The more snow the auger has in it, the harder it will blow it out the chute and the less clogging you will have. Keep the blower moving fast and it won't clog too much.
Load it down! You have what is basically a 15hp electric motor nailed to a very heavy auger. I have driven mine into snow/ice mountains, it just chews them apart. Biggest problem is going to be battery capacity, but it does a great job. 


When you have the snow thrower on an Elec-trak, do you have to have wheel
weights? I am not sure how the weight and weight distribution of an
Elec-trak compares to something like an old John Deer 110 garden tractor 
and
snow thrower. On that I had weights, chains, and the tires filled with
chloride, and it worked fine, but you could still tell it was front end
heavy.
Front end heavy is an understatement. I think the blower weighs in at 200-300 lbs. Even with the A21 mount you have a lot of weight up there. Get a weight box, fill it with lead, put it on the back of the tractor. No, put the box on first, then fill it with lead. I've thought about using the tiller as tail weight, but to be honest the mount point for the tiller is low and towards the center of the rear wheels. Weight should be as far back as possible, thus the box.
With a box I have no problem on level ground. My driveway however is a 30 degree+ hill, so I need chains. Lots of places sell tire chains for the Elec-trak sized tires. Get a set, couple with rear weight box and you will not get stuck. Don't bother with chloride, that is not where you need the weight (remember you have 4 batteries over the rear wheels, what you need is aft weight to oppose the blower up front) 


I live in Michigan and have a 125ft driveway.

I understand that the E-20 motor can be run at 48v, let's say you scrap the
wiring and are using an Alltrax controller. I guess it is a matter of heat
with them and you probably are not putting the full 48v and maxed current
for very long periods of time.
Can you run the snow thrower motor at 48v too?
Probably. It's a series wound motor, so it will just run faster. Watch the contactor rating though; the blower pulls 20 amps just sitting there spinning.
Under power, the blower is hands down the most power hungry thing there is. The tiller has a similar sized motor but it is geared low and you're driving around in LL-stop-LL anyway. With the blower you have a motor of equal size lifting a lot of snow and a main motor running at power.
I pulled 20ah of power from my NiCD pack in 10 minutes of blowing. Can't wait for real snow. 


My electric lazyboy project is all 48v and I was considering mounting the
snow thrower on that in the winter.
Can the mower motors run on 48v? Anyone know?
I would advise against it. The mower motors use fixed field magnets instead of being series or shut wound fields. Thus as you increase the armature voltage you don't increase the field strength. This will result in a pernament "field weakening" effect which will probably kill the motor. 

Chris