[alan]

Nigel, we also had the thought of installing a small petrol engine to run a generator to charge the batteries but haven’t progressed any further with my limited knowledge of these things.

The machine I have and I presume yours also is the E10M, the M stands for ‘mid mounted mower’. These tractors run on 6 x 6v batteries making 36 volts. But there was a smaller machine called the E8M. This has 3 x 12v batteries also making 36 volts.

For everyone who doesn’t know these machines, there’s a battery compartment under the bonnet and another under the seat as shown in the photos. Three car sized batteries fit in each. So far so good, but we thought we could perhaps install 3 x 12v under the seat (as in the E8M machine) and install a small 2 or 3hp engine under the bonnet to charge the batteries. How to get the system to work is another problem!

I know this deviates away from the tractor being as it would have been when it left the factory but it is a possible way to bring it up to modern day thinking. Possibly.

Attachments:

1. 
2. 

[alan]

I’m not sure if new battery technology would tempt folk into buying an electric machine. I do wonder how Ransomes (and others) have got on recently with new technology?

I remember reading a customer survey that Elec-Trak had carried out and they asked people their views on an electric ride-on-mower. Many people said that having an electric machine was unfamiliar and if anything went wrong then they wouldn’t be able to fix it themselves – unlike a petrol machine where at least diagnosis can be far easier than trying to fumble about with so many unknown electrical components and wires etc. Also a petrol machine could be fixed by any competent mower mechanic unlike an all-electric machine.

Another point raised in the customer survey was that when a petrol mower gets low on juice then we can just top it up and go again within a couple of minutes, whereas an electric tractor such as my Elec-Trak needs at least 2 hours to recharge 40% and 5 hours to recharge 85% according to the brochure in the early 70’s.

And don’t you think that hearing a petrol engine running on a tractor sounds good?!!

At present the batteries, think they are T105’s, come in at £700 for the set. I’ve got the battery charger, but I also need to replace all the electrics, the wiring is a bit of a mess and some switches etc certainly don’t work…..think it’d be easier and cheaper to rebuild a 10hp Briggs engine!

[alan]

I did think the original price might have put off many potential customers!

I’d guess that once the battery started not to hold charge then the whole machine would have been forgotten about in the shed and eventually disposed off. There’ll be several of them in the bottom of landfill tips across the country!

[alan]

The ‘b’ is for bold and will make text BOLD.

———

i is for italics
———

link is for putting in an outside web link (brings up a pop-up window)

To put in a link either copy and paste from the source OR

type the text you want into the reply box, highlight with the mouse, then click ‘list’ and type in the link address and title.
———

b-quote defines that an item has been quoted from another source.
———

del is a deleted text tag (strike through as Charlie says)

———

img gives a link to an outside image source such as a photo hosted on another server such as Photobucket, Flikr etc. (brings up a pop-up window)

———

ul is unordered list without numbering the items

Coffee
Tea
Milk

———

ol is ordered list and numbers the items in the list 1,2,3, etc.

An ordered list:

1. Coffee
2. Tea
3. Milk

———

li is list like bullet points (used with ul)

• Coffee
• Tea
• Milk

———

code inputs code but not used here
———

closed tags will close all open tags such as bold, italics etc.
———

[alan]

test link

[alan]

I’m just messing with things…

[;)]

[alan]

trying old site link

[alan]

The link button should give a direct link to outside content:

Thus: Old Site Link

….ahhhh….I see what’s the matter with other folks links…

[alan]

If you want to add photo links to a post then there is an option in the reply box – it’s the button in the bar above where you type that is labelled ‘img’. This will enable you to put in a direct link to images on photobucket etc. When you press the ‘img’ button a pop-up window appears and it will ask for the image location (www.example.com/image1.jpg etc) and then the pop-up window also asks for a description of the image.

The link needed from Photobucket is the ‘Direct’ image source beginning with “https://i”.

[alan]

The green two-seater is a Gnat. According to the internet they were designed as a farm utility vehicle.

[Author]

Posts