Norm Nelson

Hi folks,

It's been a long time since I've been on here, but I thought I should share this one...

A friend of mine has always wanted a sawmill... he builds a lot of stuff himself out of both wood and metal, and we have talked about how to build a bandsaw mill for years. A year or so ago, he started to get serious about it – he came over to take a closer look at my Mobile Dimension mill, how the raise / lower mechanism works, etc. He wanted to make a bandmill, and I mentioned the wheels / kits you could buy from Linn Lumber, etc., and showed him a couple of the trailer-wheel-style homebuilt mills.

My friend is partial to motorcycles, so when he saw a YouTube video of a guy that had built a bandmill using a couple of motorcycle wheels, he was hooked. He found a donor motor, bought some wheels for $20, then I pointed out some guide wheels for the carriage, some pallet racking for the rails and other useful parts in the scrap bin, he collected them and was on his way...

To my buddy's credit, he got his mill done in a couple of months... I think about 50 hours of work, and only like $350 USD in parts... he's good at sourcing scrap stuff, and he did it all with a limited amount of tools.

He's since made a video to document the whole build, you can check it out here if interested...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFNpKC3JTVQ

Happy sawing,
-N.

A bit late to the game here...

We've got a small Kirkland (Costco) freezer (I believe built by Whirlpool?) that an off-grid friend recommended to me because she researched it and found out it has a Danfoss compressor. Long story short, I've been running this freezer for about 15 years, the first 13 it was inside at a couple of different houses, and the last two it has been outside on the north side of our cabin. We've seen lows of about 15F, but not regularly... winters here (northwestern Washington State) are fairly mild except for the precipitation. I will say the freezer has rusted a lot more in the past year than it has its entire life. I'm in the process of building a mud room and the freezer will come back inside when that's done...

@Kari, if you have a friend that has a freezer similar to what you're considering, those Kill-A-Watt meters from P3 are a relatively cheap ($20 online, $28 at my local Home Depot) way to get a VERY accurate measure of power usage over time... they work great for inconsistent loads like fridges and freezers, they will record usage over time and you can predict from there...

-Norm.

Hi Kari,

Sorry for the delay in response.

I agree that we should have the discussion about electric tractors and global sustainability – and I too wonder how my son will feed himself in twenty years. However – the more I travel, the more I come to the realization that I can get quickly overcome by "the big picture"... I also can't help people that won't help themselves... and after my last trip, I'm currently of the mindset that I need concentrate on trying to save my little corner of the world (my small community and my nine acres), rather than trying to "save the world". If, somewhere along the journey, we come up with solutions that could help others, then I'm more than willing to share...

If we look back 100 years to the beginning of petroleum tractor usage (and the corresponding decline in draft animal usage), there were about 1.7 billion on the planet. Today there are over 7 billion people. My main question then is – could we possibly feed 7+ billion people using only draft animals for power? Is this a non-starter? Which leads to the next questions – how many draft animals would it take to grow food for 7+ billion people, and how much more arable land would we need just to feed these animals... do we have enough land for both, do we have enough people willing to work with all those animals, etc?

As for technology, I'm very much in the mindset of buying nothing new. I'm not interested in making new tractors. I'm interesting in converting old tractors (40 to 70 years old), using used parts, most of which exist in the waste stream. For instance, I visited an electric motor rebuilder the other day... he had bins of electric forklift motors in pallet racks, floor to 20' ceiling high... hundreds of them – all of them used, some of them rebuilt, many of them "out of date", meaning that the forklifts that they were made for are all old, and people don't really use those models anymore... so these motors are orphans, unless someone like myself comes along and has the crazy idea to put one in a car, tractor, etc. The same thing applies to the speed controllers, battery chargers, etc. This stuff exists in quantities already, there's no need to build or buy new ones anytime soon. I also have a number of PV modules... all of them used when I bought them – the oldest are 20 years old and still work great. The resource extraction for all these parts has already happened long ago. (but the batteries are a different story)

Yes, it takes more than an anvil and forge to rebuild these motors, controllers, PV modules, etc. but my point is – there is so much of this stuff – this technology – in existence already. The same thing goes for the lead you mention. Yes, 12 billion pounds sounds like an awful lot... until you realize that 12 billion pounds equals 6 million tons, and we humans already recycle 1 million tons and mine 4.4 million tons per year on earth... so the 12 billion pounds you mention is a little over 1 year's production to get batteries for all the hypothetical tractors needed to farm all the arable land in North America... and I assume that all those tractors wouldn't get built / converted in one year.

But you have a very valid point about the technology needed. Yes, I don't know how to build a speed controller, or the internal parts for it... but could I learn, and are there millions of those MOSFETs in existence already? Yes. I also don't know how to build a lead-acid battery. But could I learn how and do it if I really had to? Maybe. (The first PbA battery was made in 1859, I wonder how high-tech Monsier Planté's lab was?). But again, this is all hypothetical...

I agree that we should question whether regularly moving soil is a good thing. But if you start talking ponds, swales, hugelkulture piles, etc. I think I'll be looking for the electric tractor (or honestly, probably still climbing in my old diesel excavator) and get done in a couple of afternoons what would take me weeks to do with a couple of horses. Perhaps electric tractors aren't "the answer", but they're a step closer to steam, which is a step closer to once again using draft animals... but for those of us that aren't farming full time, I just don't see animals as a good fit... not yet.

-Norm.

P.S. I don't know if a 35hp tractor would pull that truck out of the mud, but if it could get traction, I think it could. Your average "5,000 lb" electric forklift actually weighs about 8,500 lbs and will pick up and move at speed another 5,000 lbs, so that's 13,500 lbs total and those forklifts have about 30hp electric motors in them, and move those weights all day on smooth ground, so maybe – just maybe – a tractor with the same motor and tractor gearing and big tires might be able to pull that 6,000 lb truck out of the mud... I'd like to see it!

Questions for Steve Heckeroth:

What's the story with this tractor?:
http://www.evalbum.com/216
It looks like one of his earlier conversions - so how did it work? Is that a separate electric motor for the hydraulic pump that we see on the side? What were the specs on the tractor before and after the conversion? Is the linear actuator steering a result of the steering being so hard because of the weight of the batteries?

In the last podcast, Steve talked a lot about efficiency, wheel motors, and how transmissions lose efficiency, etc... His #7 tractor had wheel motors, but then he mentioned that for his latest (Heckeroth G?) tractor, he was sourcing transmissions and front ends from India. I know he's also talked about how important it is to have the weight (batteries) low and in line with the rear axle (which is hard to do when there's a differential there)... so my question is, why the "regression" to a transmission?

What does Steve think of the "if you use more than a gallon of fuel in one stretch, with an electric tractor, you'd have to recharge or swap batteries" rule of thumb that reinventions McCoy (above) and John Howe have talked about?

Paul, since you talked about plowing snow and pulling people out of the ditch and such in the snow, it's only fair that you ask Steve to discuss lead-acid battery performance in sub-freezing weather.

I'd like to hear more about Steve's "hobby farm" tractor that he mentioned in the last podcast.

A friend and I are gathering parts to convert two tractors to electric - his 40hp Farmall and my 21hp Kubota L200 (the loudest tractor west of the Rockies!)... any tips, common mistakes to avoid, etc. that Steve would like to share would be greatly appreciated... my biggest concern is matching the most efficient RPMs of the electric drive motors to the existing tractor transmissions... I'm thinking we might need to gear the electric motors down about 1.5:1 or maybe even 2:1 to pull less amps...

If Steve's feeling really generous, I'd love to hear his source for $300 linear actuators that will lift 1,500lbs... unless he's talking about Northern Tool (cheap imported crap, even the reviews on their own site say their actuators are crap), I have yet to see an actuator that will lift that kind of weight for under $1,000...

Thanks for the opportunity to ask questions, Paul...

-Norm.

I've had a long interest in renewable energy systems, particularly solar and PV. Like Walk Hatfield above, I also own an old GE Elec-Trak lawn tractor, and I love running that thing and not breathing exhaust or having to wear hearing protection. I'm currently gathering parts to convert a small diesel (21hp) tractor to electric.

First off, reinventions McCoy said it best when he wrote above "... if you use more than a gallon of fuel at a stretch (no breaks or idle time), then your work would likely be interrupted by recharging."... this is the most succinct and important piece of info contained in all the posts above. I assume since reinventions has got a converted Cub he's talking about electric tractor conversions (not scratch-builts), and conversions done with smaller tractors and standard smaller battery packs – somewhere in the 115Ah to 220Ah range. I'm not convinced that this run time couldn't be extended with the use of a slightly bigger tractor and much bigger batteries – something like the 1,000Ah to 1,500Ah batteries that are commonly used in electric forklifts. I have yet to see one of these used on an electric tractor, and at US $4,000 each, I can understand why. I also wonder if there's a point of diminishing returns, where you have too much battery (and therefore too much weight), so you expend a lot of energy just carrying around the heavy battery (that you wouldn't really need if you just went back to the tractor barn and swapped batteries at lunchtime)

I see a few people on here that think we should all "just use animals"... well, I'm wondering if they regularly move xxx yards of soil from the front 40 to the back 40 with just animals... or load bins of grain with animals, or bale hay with animals (and if they don't, how efficient is storing loose hay?)... and those of us that don't yet farm full time and have to keep other job(s) to pay our property taxes and such tend to have less time to spend trying to do farm jobs using animals (because we all know it takes longer), never mind the time spent caring for the animals, making sure they are cared for if we have to travel, making sure we have enough property to grow the feed for them, etc...

Speaking of which... on John Howe's site (referenced in some posts above), there's an analysis of solar tractors vs. biofuel tractors vs. beasts of burden – and as it turns out – for a biofuel tractor (biodiesel, greasel, ethanol) – for every 20 acres farmed, you would need about 5 acres extra to grow fuel crops. For horses – for every 20 acres farmed, you'd need about 7 acres extra to grow "fuel" crops... so either way, you're needing to grow 1/4 to 1/3 more to cover the "expense" of your fuel. In one of the video links that Kari posted above, the horse farmers have 80 acres but only farm 7 acres in food crops. The other part about this is it's not completely scalable... if you have a small patch of land and you only need the work of 1/3 or 1/2 a horse, you can't feed that horse 1/3 as much as it needs to survive. There is an extensive treatise on this and also on battery size and charging, etc. on John Howe's site here:
http://www.solarcarandtractor.com/*/Photovoltaics,_Batteries,_Tractors,_Horses,_and_Biodfuel.html

There is a short summary by someone else here:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/31513

I also see some people mentioning on here the embodied energy in solar panels – saying that PV panels take a huge amount of energy to make – but I haven't seen anyone cite sources. Being into renewables, I've heard this argument for years – and in the limited research I've done, it turns out that depending on where on earth the PV panels are located (.ie how much sun they get – how much power they make per day / per year), the panels go "net zero" on embodied energy in about two to four years. The warranted life span of most PV panels is 25 years (what other electronic device can you say that about?) with, for instance 90% power output warranted at 10 years and 80% output warranted at 25 years. (I should also mention that the first PV panels ever made are still working, over 50 years later.) So if you buy PV panels today, they will become "net zero energy" in two to four years and then they're warranted for another 21 years – and will likely produce power far longer than that.
Here's an example of a PV panel warranty:
http://files.sharpusa.com/Downloads/Solar/Warranty/sol_dow_Module_Warranty_before_10_2009.pdf

Here's a PV panel embodied energy study:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/17219

Now we get down to brass tacks. I listened to the four hours of electric tractor podcasts mentioned above, and I think there were some big things that were missed.
First off, Paul kept talking about his 45?hp diesel John Deere, and Steve talked mostly about his #7 scratch-built and his version of an Allis-Chalmers G (the originals of which were about 10hp)... these are three totally different machines! If you have a farm like Paul was talking about and you need a 45hp tractor, you better think long and hard about electric before trying it out... go back to reinvention McCoy's statement above... "if you use more than a gallon of fuel at a stretch"... I can imagine that there were times that Paul was baling hay, or plowing snow, or loading bins of pig food, and he used more than a gallon of diesel at one time. If he had an electric tractor with the technology being discussed here, he would have to be coming back to the barn and swapping batteries – and IIRC, Paul was talking about maintaining 80 acres, while Steven mentioned he has like 1.5 acres... that's a big difference.

I'd like to hear more about Steve's early conversion tractors. I've seen pictures of a small Yanmar diesel with a front loader that Steve converted to electric... he got rid of the steering wheel and all... well, how did that tractor perform? I don't think I'm alone in saying that most small farms could use an all-around tractor like this Yanmar (loader, 3 pt hitch) more than they could a purpose-built planter or cultivator. Most folks don't buy a cultivator as their first tractor... they buy it as their second, third, maybe sixth tractor. Steve's #7 machine looked very promising – if only it had a loader and more powerful wheel motors.

Efficiencies aside, I think there's still a place for hydraulics, and that place is on the loader. The electric / hydraulic pump doesn't have to run all the time, it can be on-demand... (go listen to any electric forklift and you'll hear what I mean)... the hydraulic pump only runs when it's needed. There's optimum efficiency, and then there's necessity – and I think for most people these days a loader is a necessity – and no linear actuator I've seen would cut it on a loader. In the podcast, Paul had mentioned lifting 3,000 lbs. with the loader on his John Deere... I'd be REALLY surprised if either of those tracked machines pictured above would lift a 3,000 lb. grain bin with their loader. I thought Steve mentioned something in the podcast about the bucket on #11 or #12 being a one yard bucket, but then when I saw the pictures on here, it looks like maybe 1/3 yard? I know electric forklifts can lift this sort of weight, but only straight up and down, and then they have hard smooth wheels, so they then can't take that same bin and move it over soft ground... which is why we need tractors.

I'd also like to see / hear of any 25hp+ electric tractors out there that have been converted or purpose built... something with BIG batteries... >1,000 Ah... how do these tractors perform? While we're at it, let's not forget to talk about cold-weather performance. In the podcast, Paul kept talking about ice and snow and living on a mountain, and Steve never mentioned ANYTHING about how poorly lead-acid batteries (and other chemistries too!) perform in the cold... their cold-weather performance is maybe? half... there's a reason why some folks with lead-acid EV's have heat blankets under their batteries... they have to plug them in at night to keep their batteries warm. When you live in coastal California you might not have to worry about such things, but this is a subject that should be discussed – because not all of us live in warm climates, and it's in poor taste to give people false hopes and pie-in-the-sky ideas.

So yeah... do I think the technology is here for electric powered cultivation tractors? Something like the Allis-Chalmers G or the Farmall Cub? Heck yeah, let's convert them! Let's buy new ones from Steve! I'd love to see what Steve's "hobby farm" tractor looks like, too... how big, what features, etc. Let's convert some 20-30hp tractors, too! If anyone has info on other electric tractors, let's see them!

-Norm.

Another similar test, with longer cycles:
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/pdf/19-2000.pdf

I still can't find the IESNA test standard for free...

-Norm.

Hi Paul,

Well, you got me curious about the "they", so I Googled a bit... came across a couple of interesting things...

Firstly, it appears that "they", as usual, is the Feds... the Energy Star rating, and the bulbs are test by a "third party", according to the Energy Star web page here:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_crit_cfls

Notice under "Lifetime", they mention that "typical use" is three hours a day...

"Lifetime — To qualify for ENERGY STAR, CFLs must have a rated lifetime of 6,000 hours or greater. The current average rated lifetime for ENERGY STAR qualified CFLs is 10,000 hours. With typical use of 3 hours per day, that’s an average lifetime of 9 years."

If you click on "rated lifetime" it brings you to this glossary:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_glossary#rated_life

"A light bulb’s estimated lifetime measured in hours. For all light bulbs, lifetime is determined by operating a sample of bulbs according to industry test standards. The time that half of the test sample fails is considered rated life. By definition, some lamps will fail before their rated life and some will operate beyond their rated life. The ENERGY STAR CFL criteria require additional testing to show that the sample can withstand a number of short start cycles and monitors early failures throughout testing."

A little further probing, and I found a reference to the longevity testing standard here (third line up from the bottom of page 2):
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/program_reqs/cfls_prog_req.pdf

So the US Energy Star standard is defined by a test called:
"IESNA LM-65-01– 2001 Approved Method for Life Testing of Single-ended Compact Fluorescent Lamps"

I found another reference to it here:
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/876213-x3kPHq/876213.pdf

Which shows that it's also called the "ANSI C78.5-1997" standard...

BUT... in my brief search, I can't find what the actual test procedure is, without having to pay for it... they want $15 to look at the document!... and I've run out of time for today to poke around on the internet...

Oh yeah, earlier I found this tidbit on Popular Mechanics here:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/will-led-light-bulbs-best-cfls-and-incandescents

"Studies from the Program for the Evaluation and Analysis of Residential Lighting (PEARL) show that compact fluorescent bulbs often don't live up to manufacturer's claims. Glenn Reed of Energy Futures Group in Burlington, Vt., and his colleague Chris Granda at Grasteu Associates recently analyzed five years' worth of PEARL testing data on 1500 Energy Star–qualified CFLs. They found that some CFLs began to lose brightness quickly. For example, almost half of reflector CFLs—the kind used in recessed lighting—were more than a quarter dimmer before they had reached half of their rated lifetime. Although CFLs typically perform worse in recessed lighting, Reed found that these CFLs weren't even living up to their Energy Star ratings. One possible explanation is that the recessed cans that house reflectors trap heat that wears out the bulb.

The PEARL studies also revealed that the average lifespan of CFLs often fell short, echoing a common complaint among CFL users. Among eight frequently tested brands, including Philips Lighting and General Electric, early failure rates ranged from 2 to 13 percent. The National Lighting Product Information Program has found similar differences in quality among Energy Star–labeled brands. Reed notes that PEARL only tested 10 bulbs per brand and that the same brand wasn't necessarily tested all five years. These data limitations make it difficult to rank best and worst brands, but, says Reed, "it's definitely a yellow flag."

The PEARL program here:
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/pearl/index.asp

I also didn't know that Mythbusters had done a test similar to yours... (last paragraph)
http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/12/episode_69_22000_foot_fall_lig.html

-Norm.

Hi Paul,

I've been watching this thread with curiosity, because it's also been my experience that CFL's don't last anywhere near their "rated" lifespan.

I know a guy that is the "energy efficiency guy" at our local PUD (our power company)... you know, the guy that is tasked with switching everyone over to CFL's (amongst other projects)... and so when you posted the post about the one CFL lasting only 72 hours, I sent him a link to your post. His reply was that the way they rate CFL's (and maybe all screw-in, Edison base lightbulbs?) is with a 2 hours on, 15 minutes off (minimum) cycle... (eye opener right there). He also mentioned that the "12,000 hour" claim rating does not mean every bulb - or even 90% of the bulbs will last that long, it means that 50%(!) of the bulbs tested with the 2 hours on / 15 minutes off cycle will last that long. So some bulbs in a batch will last much shorter, some will last longer, but 12,000 hours is the average (or is it the mean? I don't know...)

The poster above that mentioned that CFL's shouldn't be used in enclosed fixtures is right on the money. In my experience, heat kills CFL's as quick or quicker than short cycling, and I've recently noticed that some CFL's say right on the package "not for use in enclosed fixtures" (I bet that failed Sylvania does). Of course others, like the "Eco Green" ones I saw at Home Depot recently show pictures of enclosed fixtures right on the package, encouraging people to use them there... and these are Energy Star bulbs. My friend at the PUD says that recessed ceiling fixtures (can fixtures) can be just as bad, the bulbs get very hot in there. Very hot CFL's mean the capacitors in the ballasts dry out, and then the bulb fails. I've even had a few CFL's give up some magic smoke when they flickered and died... kinda scary.

I haven't dissected an LED bulb (and at $25 each I probably won't very soon), but my gut feeling is that they must have capacitors in their power supplies, so they are probably subject to the similar heat problems that CFL's have in enclosed fixtures, etc.

I for one support NO subsidies, energy or otherwise... I wish we had a level playing field for all energy costs, so that the nukes, coal, solar, wind, etc. cost the consumer exactly what they truly cost... and the same with the bulbs... then let the economy of the situation figure it out. Some people will conserve, others will burn $100 bills, that's how people are. I for one use a variety of bulbs... as I type this I'm bathed in the warm glow of halogen light... which just means my electric space heater will run less today...

-Norm.