To the best of my knowledge, porcelain and glass are the only insulators
better than high temperature plastics.
Gutta percha is awesome stuff but won't hold up as well as plastic in
the operating environment of my tractor. Wood can rot, swell, split or
catch fire and tanned leather will corrode metal.
The generic plastic OEM ones last 40 years or so in hard use :)
--Charlie
On Sun, Dec 29, 2019, 1:16 PM Jim Coate <lists freerangeelectric com
<mailto:lists freerangeelectric com>> wrote:
Yes, I do have NOS square spacers available :-)
Jim Coate
(aka The Electric Tractor Store)
On 12/29/2019 8:25 am, Charlie wrote:
> Jim might still have some of the square spacers. I once
successfully
> made one from the square head of a giant zip tie, but the one Jim
sold
> Pete was better.
>
> --Charlie
>
> On Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:40 PM Chris Zach <cz alembic crystel com
<mailto:cz alembic crystel com>>
> wrote:
>
>> Man I am glad I fixed the brakes. Today I went up on the hill
behind
>> my
>> house to pick up some fallen trees. Drove up the 20-30 degree path,
>> picked up 3 5 foot length logs, drove back down and to the house no
>> problem.
>>
>> Decided to try 6 logs. Much heavier, but since they were at the top
>> of
>> the hill it wasn't too big a deal, it's a downhill trip with the
>> load
>> and I can just put it in L and go down the hill.
>>
>> Well, got towards the bottom of the hill and smelled smoke. And saw
>> smoke coming from under the tractor. About this time the motor cut
>> out
>> and I got to use the brakes to stop the tractor and load. Good
news:
>> The
>> new brake kit allowed me to finish the trip down (in LL, no motor)
>> and
>> figure out what had happened.
>>
>> When I checked underneath there was a small fire by the brush
studs.
>> It
>> was then I remembered that the top spacer was broken so I used a
>> short
>> length of auto coolant hose to act as the spacer. Apparently the
>> motor
>> side had gotten hot, the lower washer loosened, the coolant hose
>> caught
>> fire, and the motor shorted itself out.
>>
>> Dragged it back in with the gas tractor (sans load) and pulled the
>> motor. Sure enough the rear stud was burned, so for now I took the
>> stud
>> and insulating spacers out of the E15 motor and fixed the E20
motor.
>>
>> Will test tomorrow, but it did point out one interesting issue:
When
>>
>> going downhill you are in regen mode and the motor is working just
>> as
>> hard to charge the batteries. Add a half ton of logs behind you and
>> it's
>> a pretty significant load.
>>
>> Speaking of which, is there a source for those insulated washers
and
>> the
>> square spacer? I'm assuming they are high temp plastic or resin to
>> hold
>> up in the motor.
>>
>> C
>>
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--
Jim Coate
www.FreeRangeElectric.com <http://www.FreeRangeElectric.com>
Home of The Electric Tractor Store
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