Electric Riding Lawn Mower Conversion -- 24V

[niget2002]

I considered buying the Ryobi zero turn. They do use lead-acid batteries and they are supposed to be able to cut more than 3 acres on a single charge. Now they even have a 54" version which is pretty nice for big yards.

The batteries are supposed to last for at least 7 years before they start to lose a significant amount of capacity. And if you're only cutting an acre or two, then you'll probably get a lot more than 7 years out of them. Ironically, when you factor in the price of replacement batteries versus the cost for the gas you'd use to cut the same size lawn for 7 years, it pretty much breaks even. I did that calculations on my own property. The only real advantage of the electric mower was the lower cost of maintenance over time. But then again, it doesn't cost all that much to maintain a gas mower either.

A friend of mine has the Ryobi zero turn electric. He has nothing but praise for it.

I have one on my 'things to eventually buy' list, but I need to wait for my current mower to die.

 

[White Shadow]

A friend of mine has the Ryobi zero turn electric. He has nothing but praise for it.

I have one on my 'things to eventually buy' list, but I need to wait for my current mower to die.

Yeah, I may go with an electric zero turn one day, but not yet. Right now, all of my yard equipment is electric other than my zero turn mower and my snowblower. I have an EGO backpack blower, weed wacker, and self-propelled 21" mower. They all work great. My lawn is just under an acre and I actually cut the entire lawn with the electric mower using just two of the 7.5A batteries that came with the mower and my blower. It took me more than three hours to cut the lawn like that, but I was shocked that the mower just kept running like that. The weedwacker and blower are both very powerful too, so no issues there.

 

[Rustybolts57]

Nice project, I just stumbled upon it while looking for ideas for a tractor I am converting. I am using the original differential with a pully drive.
Can you give me any information about the blade motors you are using? Model #, watts, I assume 24 volts.
Thanks

 

[Garage Junkie]

FWIW, I'd love to see this thread keep going. I grew up using a JD Model 90 electric rider. I'm now cleaning out my parent's house and the two 90s that we used are still sitting in the garage. I'm contemplating bringing them home for restoration this winter.
These mowers originally used three deep-cycle marine batteries- 12V each. If I remember right, one was devoted to the traction motor and the other two powered the blades, but I'm not certain of that. At any rate, I think it would be interesting to upgrade the battery technology and see what they could do. We had a very hilly yard and that mower would but about 1/2 acre on a charge. It had a built-in charger that I believe would get you back to nearly 100% in about 2 hrs off a 110v outlet. The chargers were the achilles' heal of the whole mower.

 

[bdbecker]

I considered buying the Ryobi zero turn. They do use lead-acid batteries and they are supposed to be able to cut more than 3 acres on a single charge. Now they even have a 54" version which is pretty nice for big yards.

The batteries are supposed to last for at least 7 years before they start to lose a significant amount of capacity. And if you're only cutting an acre or two, then you'll probably get a lot more than 7 years out of them. Ironically, when you factor in the price of replacement batteries versus the cost for the gas you'd use to cut the same size lawn for 7 years, it pretty much breaks even. I did that calculations on my own property. The only real advantage of the electric mower was the lower cost of maintenance over time. But then again, it doesn't cost all that much to maintain a gas mower either.

For anyone with a Ryobi mower that is battling with this issue, there is a video on the Aging Wheels youtube channel that shows how to replace the batteries with a better option. He also discusses the pros/cons of different battery types for the application.

 

[Rustybolts57]

Thanks! Picked up the kit from https://www.electrictractor.net/, I tried in the past to do the plans only but had a hard time finding parts. The kit made things a bit easier for sure.

Can you tell us any information about the blade motors? Like the specs and model number.
Thanks

 

[majerus]

I can grab the blade motor specs, but would suggest using something different that was one of the pain points in the entire system i built. There are now much better blade motors you can buy with controllers which at the time was not available.

 

[428PI]

I worked at an International Harvester dealer in the early 80s. The owner had an electric cub cadet at the time. Don't know anything about them though. They couldn't sell it from what I understand so the owner took it home.