Electric Powered Crawler

Cons:
battery life is the biggest con. It seems that no matter how you drive most set ups get from 45mins to 1.5hrs. You may can extend it with solar charging on the roof.

Pros:
Instant torque
Less fluids to keep track of
Cleaner set up
Quiet


It is debatable that going electric weighs less, but with all the batteries involved I am not sure about.


I would definitely would like to do it but with that kind of limited range and the cost in converting its not worth it.
 
Valkyrie45 said:
Cons:
You may can extend it with solar charging on the roof.
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This may not even be an option, as direct sunlight is not overly available in a lot of wheeling spots due to trees and things.

I think everything sounds cool about it, but the short battery life will most definitely leave you on the trail. All you need is one small breakdown or to get hung up on an obstacle once and you'll be dead and getting towed out.
 
i think weight would be a major con, a prius weighs in around 3000lbs, that's heavy for the little shitbox.

i would think that voltage would also be an issue, 288 volts is a lot to worry about when your rubbing rocks and other things, also the magnets in the motors would be picking up every rock along the trail.

think about the wire you would have to run, the more wire you pull the more problems you you can have.
 
We may try this at the beginning of the year. We spoke with a electric car company at the autofair and this is what I know.
-The motor and batteries will weigh in at 900 lbs, it still needs to be run through a transmission and transfer case for battery life
-The motor can't be submerged in water and wont like mud at all
-The lower the RPM the more amperage it pulls which is where all the crazy torque is.
-Battery life for a street car is roughly 150 miles
-it takes 10-11 hours to charge with 110 and 5 hours to charge with 220
-solar charging really wouldn't help you
-its expensive as hell
-0-60 in the little street car was about 3.5 seconds

It was really fun to ride in but I'm having a hard time justifing it but the only pros are no noise, its green, and to my knowledge it hasn't been done before. I can post pictures of the motor and battery setup in the car if you'd like.
 
novacayne75 said:
be kinda cool to see someone use a hybrid powertrain.
yea flame away i just suggested a prius :shaking:
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Thought about this, there's no way to really get a low range and the CVT transmission will not handle a load at all, you'd smoke the transmisiion in a week
 
Interesting concept. I know an semi retired gentleman in town who took a 2wd S10 (probably late 90s) and made it electric. The bed lifted up an that was where he stored his batteries. Completely home grown project. He claims he gets almost 300 miles off a charge.

A few years back I built an old honda bike that was electric. Extension cord came out of the tank to charge it. It was sloppy by design, but worked. It would go 75mph and you could ride it for about an hour and half.

Gobs of torque!!!
 
transman731 said:
also the magnets in the motors would be picking up every rock along the trail.
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?? The magnetic field of the motors isn't THAT strong, it's not like MRI strength or anything, the field probably tapers off within a few inches at most.
Plus most rocks have very little total iron content and what is there is distributed around.

I know this isn't what you're thinking, but if the motors were small enough you could run one at each wheel, have true independent wheel drive/control - ideal for 4wheeling
but of course keeping those suckers clean would be impossible and require a vey large vehicle.

I agree that the battery life, in TIME not distance is your biggest problem.
Maybe plan to build a pull-along off-road trailer for them :lol:
 
Water crossing might be an issue! LOL!
 
RatLabGuy said:
?? The magnetic field of the motors isn't THAT strong, it's not like MRI strength or anything, the field probably tapers off within a few inches at most.
Plus most rocks have very little total iron content and what is there is distributed around.
I know this isn't what you're thinking, but if the motors were small enough you could run one at each wheel, have true independent wheel drive/control - ideal for 4wheeling
but of course keeping those suckers clean would be impossible and require a vey large vehicle.
I agree that the battery life, in TIME not distance is your biggest problem.
Maybe plan to build a pull-along off-road trailer for them :lol:
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i just know that they run rare earth magnets in the motors.


there is a system out there that bendix/delco-remy is using, with motors on each wheel, i will look through some of my paperwork from classes and see if i can narrow it down.
 
CarolinaTruggies said:
-The motor and batteries will weigh in at 900 lbs, it still needs to be run through a transmission and transfer case for battery life
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So you would be replacing say a 4 cyl gas motor and maybe 10 gallons of fuel plus 1 normal battery with 900 lbs of electric motor and batteries. I picked up and carried my Samurai engine out of my garage, and onto my utility trailer. I'd guess 200 lbs max for it. Samurai battery = 35 lbs maybe. 10 gallons of gas = 60 lbs. That is about 300 lbs vs 900 lbs, so a about a 600 lb weight gain.
 
A couple other things to consider:

4wd electric EZ-go's exist and work pretty well.

Battery life would likely be longer on a crawler because when you are sitting there thinking about your line, the engine isn't running.
 
Forget the solar top idea. I'm a project analyst for a large solar electric company, and will tell you that at most, you would be able to fit 2 PV panels on the top that are ~40"x60" (side by side), providing 480 watts at full sun (given the proper tilt), and even then you'll lose ~5% through your charge controller assuming you leave everything in DC. Being in the woods, you will never be at full sun, and 480 watts isn't enough to do anything towards running a crawler in the first place.
 
336wheeler said:
Forget the solar top idea. I'm a project analyst for a large solar electric company, and will tell you that at most, you would be able to fit 2 PV panels on the top that are ~40"x60" (side by side), providing 480 watts at full sun (given the proper tilt), and even then you'll lose ~5% through your charge controller assuming you leave everything in DC. Being in the woods, you will never be at full sun, and 480 watts isn't enough to do anything towards running a crawler in the first place.
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I have very little solar panel knowledge, but just going off the specs you gave, at 480 watts, and lets just say for example a 36V golf cart setup, those 480 watts would provide 13 A of current for charging. Most 36V golf cart chargers are between 12-20 A and give a full charge overnight. While it absolutely wouldn't be nearly enough to run it off of solar, with the amount of sitting in place, waiting on others to move, looking for a line, sitting around while eating, and sitting on the trailer the crawler would do, it could definitely supplement the charge. Obviously something as large and as heavy as we are talking about would require more batteries and a bigger motor, therefore that charge would become less significant, but there is more useable real estate than just the roof, solar panels could occupy the "hood" area as well. Although with the cost and fragility of the solar panels that large it would not be practical.
 
Also. most wheeling trips are overnight. thoughts on tackling the overnight recharging?

generator, solar array.


What about an electric over hydraulic setup to power the vehicle. how much power does it take to turn a hydraulic pump?
 
What about using a gas or diesel motor to run a genorator and use that for power rather than a shit ton of batteries.
 
Redneck92 said:
What about using a gas or diesel motor to run a genorator and use that for power rather than a shit ton of batteries.
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Seems absolutely counter intuitive to the idea of running electric, inefficient due to losses, not to mention it would take a hell of a generator to power an electric motor like this.
 
Tony K from Rock Equipment built a working one back around 2007. Do a little looking on Pirate, he had a bunch of stuff posted there if I remember correctly. I saw it at Supercrawl and it was bad ass.....
 
Thanks Andy. thats a great lead. i had forgotten all about that.
 
drkelly said:
So you would be replacing say a 4 cyl gas motor and maybe 10 gallons of fuel plus 1 normal battery with 900 lbs of electric motor and batteries. I picked up and carried my Samurai engine out of my garage, and onto my utility trailer. I'd guess 200 lbs max for it. Samurai battery = 35 lbs maybe. 10 gallons of gas = 60 lbs. That is about 300 lbs vs 900 lbs, so a about a 600 lb weight gain.
Click to expand...


Yup, Ill post some pictures of the batteries and the motor tomorrow.
There's the thought of running individual wheel motors and this is where it gets interesting.....AC or DC motors, AC motors would give you regenerative braking and would drive like a hydrostatic setup. You would have to run a reduction at the wheels to run the motors at a high rpm during a desired speed so it doesnt run through batteries as fast, 1500-2000 rpm if i'm not mistaken. The controller becomes an interesting task to take on but you could control individual wheels and such. Winching is no problem, a 12volt system comes out of controller I believe and the only reason to run a small car battery is to be a buffer and smooth the 12 volt system out.
 
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