Battery Products

[DirtMechanic]

Transitioning from gas powered tools to tools that are powered by electric made from 60% fossil fuels

"
What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

Energy source	Billion kWh	Share of total
Fossil fuels (total)	2,553	60.4%

Seems a bit daft to me, but it sounds green on paper

Uranium stocks are up. California has a problem getting enough oil so I think they are creating demand for electricity which will lead to the need for nuclear power.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Hi Zigs,
Thanks for your thorough reply mate. I'm not pushing the " Green thing ", I'm actually being selfish and thinking about myself ( lol) regarding the equipment being lighter, quieter and not mucking around with mixing fuel etc

I cannot fathom "lighter'. The more power battery tools have then the heavier the coils of copper in the motors they have on board and the more cells in the batteries. A suggestion would be a portable battery station where then one could run the lighter traditional electric devices by electrical cord on a standard ac circuit. Or one might establish a permanent solar station with batteries and inverters for properly powered circuits in the garden. The panels make shade which could be a drawback.

 

[Loose Screw]

Get use to 1000 foot extension cords because battery sux.....
And I have noticed hardware stores are stocked with Waaay more battery equipment than gas!
Hospitals have used electric for years around here......
I'm still All Gas and will go down that way even though electronic cars are really fast........

 

[zigs]

Our mowers (yes both of them) started off with a good run but after a couple of months they won't even do a lap of the garden without needing recharging.

 

[zigs]

I cannot fathom "lighter'. The more power battery tools have then the heavier the coils of copper in the motors they have on board and the more cells in the batteries. A suggestion would be a portable battery station where then one could run the lighter traditional electric devices by electrical cord on a standard ac circuit. Or one might establish a permanent solar station with batteries and inverters for properly powered circuits in the garden. The panels make shade which could be a drawback.

It's the body of the machine that's light. All plastic and hardly weighs anything without the battery in it. Our power station is in the garden so we could do that with a lead from one of the inverters but that would mean buying more 240volt a/c power tools

 

[Loose Screw]

My gas push lawnmower is 22 years old and I use the Heck out of it. It's been through 4 blades, 2 pull start ropes and 2 safety cables. It's not even a Honda either, just the least expensive they had. My pre mix gas weed eater and blower only last about 2 or 3 seasons though, the gas around here gums them up.....
Sometimes it's a hundred degrees American when I'm out using them.

 

[DirtMechanic]

It's the body of the machine that's light. All plastic and hardly weighs anything without the battery in it. Our power station is in the garden so we could do that with a lead from one of the inverters but that would mean buying more 240volt a/c power tools

View attachment 101261

I saw a neat hotrod motor for an EV. They made a 6 phase motor basically. 800 horsepower from 750 AMPs. Thats more than my house draws mind you so I would not think it would be a slow car.

 

[Mr_Yan]

800 hp converts to 596560 W (call it 597 kW or kVA). So 597 kVA / 750 A is just shy of an 800 V system.

The battery pack of a Rivian R1T is nominally a 400 V battery. Lucid uses a 900-ish V battery pack. Sounds within the ball park.

I worked on designing and programming a few automated assembly lines for EV battery packs. The battery packs alone weigh within 200 pounds of the spec weight of my Kia Rio.

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For me, an electrical engineer, I'll reach for electric over gas 9 times out of 10. I don't have the patience for mixing, storing, and spilling gas or anything with a carburetor and having to do the winterizing maintenance.

 

[DirtMechanic]

800 hp converts to 596560 W (call it 597 kW or kVA). So 597 kVA / 750 A is just shy of an 800 V system.

The battery pack of a Rivian R1T is nominally a 400 V battery. Lucid uses a 900-ish V battery pack. Sounds within the ball park.

I worked on designing and programming a few automated assembly lines for EV battery packs. The battery packs alone weigh within 200 pounds of the spec weight of my Kia Rio.

=======

For me, an electrical engineer, I'll reach for electric over gas 9 times out of 10. I don't have the patience for mixing, storing, and spilling gas or anything with a carburetor and having to do the winterizing maintenance.

Maintenance issues, aside from battery repair or replacement, are gone for me too and I do not miss having to rebuild small carburators or tune 2cycle power bands seasonally.

 

[cpp gardener]

We have a Mean Green mower that gets used 2 times a week that is pushing 5 years of service. The only issue we have is that the basket for clippings is on the side and tends to cut shorter on that side when the basket gets about 1/2 full. Newer ones might not have that issue.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

It very much depends on the extent of work you are going to do and the equipment you buy. The electric stuff is getting much better quite quickly - and a lot less maintenance. But like cars, big battery packs are heavy. You could carry spare battery packs with you and even some vehicles have 110v outlets for emergency recharging. You would definitely have to be rigorous about recharging every night, because forgetting could be disastrous. But spare battery packs are also expensive, however, it seems the chargers are quiet cheap. I don't know what brands you get where you are, but you wold want to do some serious research so you can use just 1 or maybe two at most so all your batteries are interchangeable. Also in the US, all small engines are now 4 stroke only, so there's no fuel mixing involved.

 

[Loose Screw]

It very much depends on the extent of work you are going to do and the equipment you buy. The electric stuff is getting much better quite quickly - and a lot less maintenance. But like cars, big battery packs are heavy. You could carry spare battery packs with you and even some vehicles have 110v outlets for emergency recharging. You would definitely have to be rigorous about recharging every night, because forgetting could be disastrous. But spare battery packs are also expensive, however, it seems the chargers are quiet cheap. I don't know what brands you get where you are, but you wold want to do some serious research so you can use just 1 or maybe two at most so all your batteries are interchangeable. Also in the US, all small engines are now 4 stroke only, so there's no fuel mixing involved.

I'm not familiar of Any small ICE manufactured in the United states, but I do know there is a lot of 2-stroke imported ICE being sold in the US. Lawn care equipment and dirt bikes come to mind......

 

[DirtMechanic]

It very much depends on the extent of work you are going to do and the equipment you buy. The electric stuff is getting much better quite quickly - and a lot less maintenance. But like cars, big battery packs are heavy. You could carry spare battery packs with you and even some vehicles have 110v outlets for emergency recharging. You would definitely have to be rigorous about recharging every night, because forgetting could be disastrous. But spare battery packs are also expensive, however, it seems the chargers are quiet cheap. I don't know what brands you get where you are, but you wold want to do some serious research so you can use just 1 or maybe two at most so all your batteries are interchangeable. Also in the US, all small engines are now 4 stroke only, so there's no fuel mixing involved.

not here as far as I know..but remember all the carbon crap you hear is how to tax your air. We are in a bubble. I read some nut the other day saying we have had the warmest year on record. Yet the ancient records show far higher temps. I am concerned the paychecks are not represented properly on the real planetary recordings.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I read some nut the other day saying we have had the warmest year on record. Yet the ancient records show far higher temps.

We had that reported on the news the other day. I don't know how old you regard 'Ancient' as, but records don't really go back far, and of course they are talking globally, so locally it could actually be colder some places. The extent of Greenland ice seems to indicate it's quite a bit warmer there recently, but twelve hundred years ago or so Vikings were establishing farming communities there, then it got cold and they left. I think the truth is that unless the changes get really big it is going to take five hundred years or so to tell what the trend really is, let's hope they don't get really big. The other possibility of course is heavy volcanic activity, which could easily produce something like a nuclear winter, volcanoes have been more active recently, but that's another area we can't predict very well either.

 

[DirtMechanic]

We had that reported on the news the other day. I don't know how old you regard 'Ancient' as, but records don't really go back far, and of course they are talking globally, so locally it could actually be colder some places. The extent of Greenland ice seems to indicate it's quite a bit warmer there recently, but twelve hundred years ago or so Vikings were establishing farming communities there, then it got cold and they left. I think the truth is that unless the changes get really big it is going to take five hundred years or so to tell what the trend really is, let's hope they don't get really big. The other possibility of course is heavy volcanic activity, which could easily produce something like a nuclear winter, volcanoes have been more active recently, but that's another area we can't predict very well either.

In the context of the warming discussion I believe the starting point is relevant. I saw the interview about extracting the 2 million year old core drilled DNA and what they claimed about the very warm environment related to those animals meant to their success. It is interesting stuff. I watched another interview where the fellow simply pointed out that in the big picture timeline the chosen starting point was during a low temp period. What do I know though, right? I do like watching the arguments. I wonder why they disagree on what is empirically provable though. The science therefore seems convenient to me sometimes.