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Hi @JZ. I haven't tried to create a guide per se, partly due to lack of time but also because all my projects are kind of "one off" projects that I design around components I can salvage or find and rarely are they good recipes for exact duplication. I try to document my projects in video here when I have time and there may be other videos on my channel that will help you to get a better grasp of what's involved in such a conversion project. There's also a pretty vibrant community on Facebook Groups for DIY EV projects. You can join the DIY Electric Farmer Group that I help to coordinate if you can handle using Facebook for discussion on these topics.

@@sdfft820 this model is too light for plowing but with S-tine cultivators it does a good job on shallow tillage. Larger tractors of this same style are suited to plowing and several plows exist for them. I don't personally have a plow for any of mine and we only use them for weeding tasks rather than deeper tillage.

Yes we put them on shortly after that earlier video, more than a year ago, and they've been a big upgrade, primarily because of the awesome big cast iron weights which you don't feel except as improved traction. Check this vid: ruclips.net/video/sCVaRdfSeCo/видео.htmlsi=DkIOLADoVCRGyxNz

Or this one ruclips.net/video/m39I9bUG068/видео.htmlsi=kBXBW9VCduwyGyOc

😆 What does that even mean?

First of all that's a great idea! I don't remember how much current the pump draws but I remember being surprised at how little it was. It might also be totally fine at 18V since that's only 28% over the 14V spec one has to presume for "12V" devices. If you don't want the pump to run faster than stock I bet you can get an adjustable DC-DC that can handle 5 or 10A and I think that would be good. Maybe test the current draw before spending money based on my hazy recollection though.

When I looked into the potential risks I couldn't see any reason to be afraid. The temps and latency necessary to kill 100% of Legionella are easily met by this system so that even if it was breeding in the floor loop it would be killed when it returns to the water heater. If there's some other bacterium or detail I'm missing I hope someone will let me know but so far it's just "bad idea" comments like yours. Please elaborate.

@@reidallaway Not as efficient either, everytime you "use" hot water, you have to bring more well water in to the system, rather than just re-circulating warm / hot water. If you just bought a small hot water on demand for the kitchen, and kept the 2 systems separate, you could add an antifreeze product in to the heating lines and not have to worry about blowing it out, and also not worry about possibly getting sick. I also sure by now you installed the air bleeders and the pressure tank, if you keep using the setup for both, you'll always have air issues because you keep letting in more air every time someone washes their hands.

@@benmarshall76 the pressure tank was already present and yes I added an air extractor that seems to work fine for the inevitable bubbles. The cost savings of building one system instead of two still seems to make sense to me. we needed hand washing and hydronic heat in the same space and I think we're now in the 3rd year of trouble-free operation since completing it and adding the bubble scrubber.

Hi Andrius. 1. For smaller machines like this in the 5-10kW power range I think it is perhaps not always necessary to complicate life with precharge resistors, relays and timers. You can surely find a small solid state DC timer module that would manage the precharge sequence for you but you can also just put a precharge resistor across the contactor so that it trickles some current into the controller and keeps the capacitors full. For short term storage of a few days to weeks I think there is no major concern of draining the battery through an "always on" precharge resistor like this. A battery disconnect switch or simply a plug you can pull might be good for long term storage if your battery is not removable. Many BMSes can also be wired with a switch to shut them down, isolating the battery quickly and easily for storage. 2. Most of my electric machines Do have contactors for main power, always only one is needed, either positive or negative, and usually I've used precharge resistors. I think some of the smaller 24V systems don't have contactors and I can't remember if the most recent 48V tractor had a precharge resistor. I've never set up a sequencing timer or separate relay for precharge. 3. Many controllers will take care of managing the contactor coil based on inputs and various kinds of logic and if you use a controller that has been designed to manage the contactor it will usually have an inactivity timeout to release the contactor. 4. I have sometimes tried to put dust filtration on the intake side of an air-cooled DC motor but I'm not terribly worried about it wearing out the brushes prematurely. One of our early conversions, the BCS 2-wheel tractor, finished 4 years of service and brushes might have worn a bit, had I measured them 4 years ago, but they certainly didn't look like I needed to think about ordering new ones for at least another decade. 5. I have not had any problems with batteries getting hot while working but I rarely have the opportunity to run them really hard. If I use a pair of 1kWh 24V batteries in parallel on the BCS and drain them at close to full power (≈150A combined) for 30-40 minutes the packs will be noticeably warm when I finish but I don't have a big charger for them and I just put them to charge indoors, out of the sun and they're cool at the end of recharge. If you can tolerate Facebook as a platform there's a pretty good group I help to moderate called The DIY Electric farmer where you could get ideas, answers and encouragement. facebook.com/groups/diyelectricfarm There's also tons of useful info on www.endless-sphere.com, though more geared to e-bike tech, or diyelectriccar.net. Both of those sites have huge searchable forums databases with decades of accumulated knowledge.

Hi there. The circuit breaker shown in the video is junk. I've seen several of them fail and they just suck. Anything that looks like that just avoid it. get a Blue Sea or similar breaker from marine or trucking parts supplier. Also the undercurrent protection module in this video (XY-CD60) is overly complex and hard to configure/remember. Otherwise I'd also go with a bigger PWM motor speed controller to have a bit more margin of error. We haven't cooked ours but a few other farmers that built units like this managed to cook the motor controller. I think this one was rated 70A cont, 100A peak so go one size bigger and at 100A continuous you could trip the circuit breaker before toasting the controller. ALSO, put the breaker between the controller and the motor, not between the battery and controller as I did here. Read up about PWM to find out but the breaker here isn't actually protecting the controller at low speeds. Finally, the contents of the white "control box" are quite simple. There's a terminal strip to collect inbound wires and connect components and then there's a 3 position switch for FWD/OFF/REV, and a potentiometer that came with the motor controller and was simply relocated with a bunch of wire between and then there's an emergency stop switch and an orange LED marker light from the truck parts store because that way it's already got resistors built in and is happy at 24VDC.

That's exciting that they're saying 2024. They've been saying that something is "coming soon" for several years and I'm excited to see what their engineers can do with all the resources at their disposal.

There are currently no plans to offer electric Power Ox tractors or conversion kits and this machine is built on the now-retired Power Ox 220 platform. The current Power Ox 240 with Honda engine is an excellent machine which you can order from Tilmor or Thiessen today. I am working with Thiessen Tillage Equipment on an all new electric 2 wheel cultivating tractor, continuing the evolution of the Agrarian Electric tractor started by Andrew Mutsaers. Hopefully it will be available in late 2024 or early 2025.

@@reidallaway Excellent !!!

Suena como un proyecto fabuloso y ambicioso. ¡Intentaré seguir tu progreso y te deseo mucha suerte desde Canadá!

I looked it up and checked the temperatures for Legionella and took a few preventative measures but I can't really see how it could happen. I blow out the heating loop with compressed air during the time of year when it's idle (summer) so it can't breed much bacteria and the water heater is set much hotter than Legionella can survive (most water heaters are nowadays) so I'm hoping I'm not wrong on this.

In terms of efficiency electric heating of water is pretty much 100% efficient as far as I know. Then it’s just a question of how well insulated the space is, both beneath the slab and then the room’s walls, doors, ceiling etc. In this case we’re using a 3kW water heater to heat about 350sq ft in a corner of an old barn where we insulated one corner of the building pretty well and had to redo about 200 sq.ft of the floor so we had the spray foam contractor do the sub slab zone at the same time as he did several walls. Then we poured the new slab with about 100ft of pex in the slab and set up the water heater to heat it. Savings vs. fuel unknown as we've never heated this section with fuel.

You may be pleased to know that this video is from 5 years ago and this converted BCS has been working virtually flawlessly on our commercial vegetable farm ever since. The BCS has been so great that we've bought more implements for it, invented loads of new jobs for it and I have also been motivated to convert other 2-wheelers for weeding and seeding jobs. Just trying to keep you motivated😆

Our farm is pretty flat and we (try to) maintain the roads and travel paths in flat-ish condition so generally the rear-wheel drive and 4" of ground clearance haven't caused us much trouble. Every once in a while we get Bob stuck in the mud and pull him out with something else and the bottom of the rear differential is definitely "polished" from being so low but 99 times out of 100 Bob is a pleasure to operate on our farm

With rototiller, and also with our recently acquired 65cm flail mower, it is possible to get up to 5000W or even a bit more instantaneous power output. However, typical power demand for rototiller or power harrow is normally much lower (1500-3000W) as we're usually doing final bed preparation in greenhouses where the soil is relatively loose.

I do talk to them about this and other projects and they supported my work on this. The shift to electric power for walk behind tractors is a certain thing in my eyes and the folks at Tilmor are organized and clever so I'm confident they'll go this route too but it may still be a couple years before anything makes it to market. The Agrarian project from Andrew Mutsaers and Thiessen Tillage is also very exciting and I'm keen to help that progress to market under the Thiessen banner.

Bought directly from Buudingh Co. In Michigan. Built to order. Even easier to order one from Tilmor these days and with more options and parcel delivery option rather than freight. www.tilmor.com

Hi Jerome it is a dual-purpose system but the only risk I could find when researching was the risk of bacteria multiplying in the stagnant slab loop during the non-heating season. I manage this risk by purging the floor loop with compressed air and leaving it dry during the summer. The water heater is set hot enough to kill Legionnaires' disease which is the only risk I found mention of. I'm not clear on where the risk would come from but I'm happy to learn more if there are risks I failed to grasp. The water heater emergency top drain is the only connection to the grey water system. It drains into free air in the top of the transfer pump case so I think it's impossible to reverse flow or contaminate. Yes everything operates at the same pressure. Pressure control is by well pump with Subdrive VFD + expansion tank and emergency relief valve on water heater as backup.

I know a bit about engines. the Honda GX340 that was on here originally was a really great engine but I took it off shelved it. After a year or two I sold it and I'll never use one again. Using an electric motor for traction applications is just that much better. Yes batteries are heavier and bulkier than fuel but you can accommodate that with good design and end up with a machine that simply works better in every regard. Our farm is almost 20 people and maybe 10 of them use this tractor from time to time. NOBODY would want me convert it back to a gas engine after operating it under electric power. That's enough real-world confirmation for me.

c'est excessivement génial comme machine et oui, effectivement, faut s'amuser avec son boulot aussi mais je ne t'apprends rien là!

@@reidallaway lol oui c'est toujours mieux de s'amuser en travaillant =p en regardant sur la vidéo j'arrive pas a comprendre ce qui fait la liaison entre la barre de transmission et les roues, c'est une liaison par chaine ou c'est un cardan a 90 degré ?

La réduction finale est une chaîne à rouleaux. No. 40 je crois. C'est une réduction 16 pour 43 si je me rappelle bien et il y a aussi une réduction 8:1 dans le boitier intégré au différientiel@@firenbubble

@@reidallaway okok dac merci, j'ai compris environs 50 % mais j'vais demander a chatGPT de m'expliquer le reste lol

They only "need" wheel weights because they often have more torque and can use more traction than their gas counterparts. Ours is plenty heavy and while the motor is close to center the battery is pretty far forward and moderately heavy so we ended up adding weight at the handlebars, of all places, just to get it to balance well. We're looking forward to really making it work but two skinny men were unable to stop it and it just dragged us around.

@@reidallaway how much does the motor weigh? My own electric converted walk behind is hella light and wheel spins all day without weights - I think the weirdly small wheels also is a factor

@@janramonmartin the motor weighs 10kg, the differential maybe 8 or 10kg, the battery is 20kg. bare tractor might be 50kg and other miscellaneous bits might add up to another 5 or 10kg. So it's pretty big and heavy but it's close to correctly balanced, though not great for light tools. Tires are 5.0-10 which is a step of from original 4.0-8

Glad you asked! 6 years later this rainwater collection system is still totally functional and has been changed very little. We eventually added eavestrough + another sump barrel + sump pump to the other side of the building to double the harvest rate. Otherwise we've really changed almost nothing other than a lot of pantyhose primary filters. At least twice we've forgotten to remove plugs from the first flush diverter in the fall and suffered freeze-burst ABS pipes but otherwise it's been great. At least one stock tank de-icer has died in service but I think we're still on the original sump pump for the south side. Now that we're collection from both halves of the building I think we get roughly 2000 litres for every 10mm of rainfall. That's roughly 1000 gal from each inch of rain that falls on the building. All told this project.

It has a proprietary BMS that appears to have passive balance circuitry (bleed resistors) but the whole thing is designed to communicate with and be controlled by a main controller in a big rack-mount configuration. Individual modules make good standalone units but were not intended to be used as such. The JK BMS adds active balance and it can be made to work and configured, which is not true of the original BMS to my knowledge.

@@reidallaway thank you for the quick reply. I recently purchased 4 of these, would you recommend the individual BMS for each pack or look into the BMU from Murata? Ultimately will connect to a Victron Multiplus inverter

@@Enterprisemarketer It might be difficult to find the original Murata BMU or documentation/software to manage it. I suspect that individuation BMSes will be a better and cheaper solution

Yes I guess so. There was a company making powered wheel hoes a few years ago, Carts and Tools, but they don't seem to be in operation anymore. If you're considering such a project there are some good geared hub motors that are designed to be fitted with an 8" tire directly on the hub motor. Check the link below for one good example. ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/motors/geared-wheelbarrow-motor-agricultural-tire.html

Hell yeah! Gotta have fun in the shop, and nobody has more fun than Ave!

Oui en fait ça fait presque 4 ans que la machine converti est achevé et nous rend un service fiable. En plus c'est en contexte de production commercial sur notre ferme maraîchère, pas juste utilisation occasionnelle. Je suis très content des résultats et on retournera jamais aux moteurs à combustion pour les machines de cette dimension.

I have a vague recollection of an older power king tractor using one but can't remember which. Try YT tractor forums maybe. And there's the Cross key automobile.