Electric machinery

Farm Hack
1

I recently came across these electric wheel loaders

The AOLITE 604

They seem like a reasonable basis for a general purpose ~75cm bed tractor.

Maybe some open source tool attachments (hydraulic or electric) could be developed for them?

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2

You could for example mount a 215kg power harrow

With a hydraulic PTO

3

The only issue I see with that is how to rear mount it? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Are you thinking to weld the skid mount to the frame at the back? :thinking:

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4

Yeah, they look pretty coolā€¦ wondering what the box on the back is? Battery? Toolbox? :confused:

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5

Not sure!

Maybe I could build a hydraulic > BCS PTO attachment. Mount it on the front loader?

Some of the Oggun tools might work front mounted too

6

You might want to follow this very lively Electric DIY Farmer facebook group. A lot of folks that are leading the conversion to electric in agriculture.

7

Nice thanks. I usually manage to avoid Facebook but I may make an exception for this.

8

Current thinking is to avoid the hydraulic system and develop an electric PTO to power stuff like

Useful components may include

10Kw motors seem to be about Ā£1400, 5kw seem to be around Ā£350 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004611444801.html

Reid Allaway on FB: That QS motor would probably be a good match. 5kW continuous, 10kW peak sounds right for a rotary harrow that size. You probably want to find something air-cooled and make sure it has a temp sensor that you can connect to your motor controller to allow it to manage the risk of thermal overload since itā€™ll be hard to keep an eye on from the operatorā€™s position. Many controllers can do this gracefully with gradual reductions in max power to maintain temps under danger threshold but there is a meaningful amount of heat to dissipate, even if itā€™s running at 94% efficiency you still lose 6% of 5kW as heat so thatā€™s 300W to lose to the air from the aluminium case. Donā€™t shroud it or let it get too covered in filth and maybe plan to put it higher and more exposed with belt drive to PTO input shaft.
Lots of little considerations but definitely doable and not prohibitively expensive unless you consider your timešŸ˜
The motor you indicated is called QS165 and they call it a ā€œmid drive motorā€, aimed at the small motorcycle market. QS also makes a couple motors that include a gear reduction unit on the output shaft but the 4kW version appears to be liquid-cooled only, which adds complexity. QC has at least 3 english web sites, sometimes with contradictory information:
https://www.qsmotor.com/mid-drive-motor/
http://www.qs-motor.com
http://cnqsmotor.com/en/
Other common Asian motors in this size range include those from Golden Motor. These are well-known and have been available for several years with loads of experience and advice available online. Hard to beat for cost-quality.
https://goldenmotor.bike/product-category/bldc-motors/