Electric Farmall C Conversion

[Anonymous-0]

Thought you guys might like to see what some University of Vermont students did for their senior engineering project. One of the students knew that I liked old tractors and asked if they could look at some of my collection to so that they could come up with a concept for an electric conversion. This video shows what they did and how they did it. This was a joint project between UVM, The Intervale Community Farm, Queen City Steel and myself. Great project and very exciting to see the tractor in action.

Below is a link to a video showing the how they did it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcqEpLeQLc4

 

[Dblair]

no information about your new tractor as plows it will pull for how long or is it a bust on all the real duties of a tractor ?

 

[Claven2]

(quoted from post at 17:35:07 09/22/15) no information about your new tractor as plows it will pull for how long or is it a bust on all the real duties of a tractor ?

I doubt they know/care. The donor said in the video they just used it for light duties pulling light stuff around before it was converted.

As an engineer, I found the conversion methods interesting, but my heart just screams: SO WRONG. About the same as scrapping a nice tractor.

They should have started with a dead tractor, cracked block, etc. not a runner that just needed paint.

Oh well.

 

[Lucas0522]

http://www.valleyoaktool.com/electric-tractors/

A little north of me in Chico, there's been a couple conversions done. They have been trying to sell them for a little while now. They are extremely pricey, but that's just my opinion.

 

[Anonymous-0]

The tractor that my company donated was headed to the shop to be parted out. The tractor had a cracked block, it was not in running condition.

The tractor will cultivate for 4 hours on a full charge in light river bottom soils. The DC motor develops 40 hp at full power. This tractor also have way more torque than a gasoline tractor ever will have at much lower RPM. When I get a chance I will reach out to Andy to see how well the tractor actually performed.

 

[Anonymous-0]

The design for this conversion is open source and is available to anyone that would like a copy of the build plans. This was a condition of Andy at the Intervale Farm. He donated several thousand dollars toward the project, my company donated the tractor, wide front end, labor to remove the parts and transportation of the tractor & Queen City Steel donated the steel and use of their shop facilities.

 

[Claven2]

(quoted from post at 18:34:23 09/22/15) The design for this conversion is open source and is available to anyone that would like a copy of the build plans. This was a condition of Andy at the Intervale Farm. He donated several thousand dollars toward the project, my company donated the tractor, wide front end, labor to remove the parts and transportation of the tractor & Queen City Steel donated the steel and use of their shop facilities.

Does it still have a PTO?

 

[Anonymous-0]

Yes, the pto is still there. I asked the students if they wanted it removed they asked me to include it. I do not believe the Intervale Farm uses the pto as they mainly use the tractor for cultivation.

 

[Cory Schmidt]

As long as it works its a job done well. Good job to all involved.

 

[Duane WI]

This is interesting. I like the basic idea of people experimenting with new ideas. It may not seem commercially practical at this point but given time, improvements in battery storage capacity and the beauty of cost reduction through mass production, electric tractors just may end up being a great idea. I am 100% positive that 100 years ago there where a lot of farmers thinking the tractor could never replace the horse.

 

[Claven2]

I think there are a lot of good reasons to go to electric drive for some machines. Got all that.

Don't be so sure it's more sustainable/green/renewable as claimed in the video.

For starters, the majority of electricity in the US is not produced sustainably.

For example, nationally:

Coal makes up 39% of electricity production and Natural gas 27% - 66% combined and both are forms of fossil fuel and have a carbon, VOC, NOx and aldehyde footprint.

Compare that to Nuclear at only 19% and Hydropower at a measly 6%. Not a high rate of "clean power". Not so sure nuclear is "clean", by the way.

Now look at the batteries. Few industries produce more pollution than battery production. The EPA estimates hybrid car battery production of similar size to what your students mounted to that tractor account for 20% of a hybrid vehicles lifetime CO2 emissions during manufacture. Think about that.

It's still a cool project though.

 

[Andy Martin]

Natural gas, however, being much cleaner than coal. It always amuses me how some people seem to think that electric vehicles are totally non-polluting.

Safe nuclear energy: send the spent fuel on a rocket into the sun, keep it burning a little longer.

 

[gene bender]

EPA what a bunch of jerks do you realy believe they always know what they are stating. Localy they are handing out a huge fine against owner for building an "ILLEGAL" pond on his own land. Coal can be burned clean but when you have a president bound to shut coal industry down where are we going as we all know he does believe in the junk science. Coke is a prime example of bad promotions of the Polar Bear disapearing when Canada took a survey and couldnt find any proof.

 

[RC Brooks]

(quoted from post at 04:37:27 09/22/15) Thought you guys might like to see what some University of Vermont students did for their senior engineering project. One of the students knew that I liked old tractors and asked if they could look at some of my collection to so that they could come up with a concept for an electric conversion. This video shows what they did and how they did it. This was a joint project between UVM, The Intervale Community Farm, Queen City Steel and myself. Great project and very exciting to see the tractor in action.

Below is a link to a video showing the how they did it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcqEpLeQLc4

Interesting. I've always been interested in diesel electric/gas electric power, similar to locomotives. You have multiple power units that you can step up and only use what you need. Pure electric's biggest problem is when put under load and in the cold, performance drastically reduces and ultimately kills batteries.

One of the biggest killers of electric motors is vibration. I've always thought a diesel electric truck with direct drive motors would be a great setup, but I just don't think an electric motor would survive for long without a suspension to soften the blows.

 

[rustyfarmall]

Any thoughts as to the total cost of the various components?

Also, did the final product weigh more, or less than the original tractor?

I've entertained thoughts of doing a similar conversion to an H, but have no idea of where to source the components, or how practical and useful it would be.

 

[Claven2]

(quoted from post at 06:26:02 09/23/15) EPA what a bunch of jerks do you realy believe they always know what they are stating. Localy they are handing out a huge fine against owner for building an "ILLEGAL" pond on his own land. Coal can be burned clean but when you have a president bound to shut coal industry down where are we going as we all know he does believe in the junk science. Coke is a prime example of bad promotions of the Polar Bear disapearing when Canada took a survey and couldnt find any proof.

Sorry for the hijack, but it does not matter how clean you burn coal, it's still bad in the same circles that state "battery power is soooo clean". For starters, the cleanest coal tech on earth still pumps out lots of CO2. So do the factories that make lead-acid batteries, LI-on batteries, NiMH etc.

I grabbed the EPA stat because it was easy to find. The point it, manufacture of "green energy tech" is pretty far from green, but it makes some people feel good.

Me, I like gasoline. As long as we have it, we should just use it.

I live in Canada, we have no shortage of polar bears. Even if we did, half the year we have temperatures in the -22F range, so I'm all for switching back to Freon, putting CFC's back into spray-deodorant cans, and returning carburetors back to auto production. *grin* Bring on global warming!

 

[gene bender]

That was the reason for my post the EPA is a bunch of jerks who too much of the time dont know the truth. Private companys can do wonders but when you have EPA jerks saying no what are you going to do.