I had a good week of finding deals for projects. Not this week, mind you, but a week or two back...
Lithium Cells for $75: (Canadian)
Two 36V/15AH batteries. PO tried rebuilding it with a pre-built (but not wired to anything) unit from china...didn't work. Bad BMS. Old, brand-name cells are all good, holding full capacity; two of the parallel chunks (10S, 5P) of the chinese cells were bad...the opposite of what I was expecting. 90 good 3ah cells for $75, I'm not complaining.
Nice little generator for a whopping $35:
It's an old aircraft generator. 28V, 100A. Whoopidy doo? It's essentially a separately excited motor. You can control rpm or generator output via how much voltage you feed the field. It's nice and compact (6" diameter, 10" long), though a bit heavy (35lbs). All of that is nice, but what makes it particularly useful...it's rated for 10,000 rpm. One thing that's held me back from strapping an electric-assist motor to a car engine is that the one's I have are only good for ~5000rpm, and/or just too dang big. This can handle using 2:1 pulley ratio without blowing up...
A rolling motorcycle carcass for $50:
Which just happens to check off all the boxes of things I wasn't happy with on a previous purchase....cost less to boot. Drum brakes (that's a plus, IMHO), new(ish) after market rims, street-style forks, etc.
This is (now) the backbone of what I'm working on...
And...WTF?
It's...it's...probably a mistake.
It's a 3-cylinder diesel generator out of a light tower. Pretty low hours, if the hour meter is accurate. Sat around exposed for 2 years. But...I'm a sucker for a deal($100) and a project that involves either engines or making/storing electricity, and this is both...The engine is worth more, if it works, regardless if it ever puts out electricity again.
The generator was my first purchase that week...they just kept falling in my lap from there. Decent deals are hard to come by, living on an island...everyone asks top dollar for everything, unless they just want to get rid of it, which is the case with all of these.
I didn't need even one more project, now I've got several more. D'oh!
