electric powered logging skidder idea.

[trooper Tdiesel]

ive had this wild idea floating around in my head ever since we got are parts skidder.
and i admit its waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out there, but every one has there dreams right....

thus why i put it in the unicorn area

in short after we pull all the use full stuff off from it, the frame is no good to us, other than selling it to some one that needs one of the short frames. or my out side the box idea.....
where all are other skidders have the long frame.....its 5" longer for the reverser.

i guess i should say its a Garrett 15 log skidder....made back in the 50s and 60s real ol school
stock they came with a industrial 172ci gas or diesel ford engine. there around the 50hp mark or so and have plenty of power to run it.

the trouble is this thing would need to be able to go about 5 miles on a charge. 3.5 miles at the all out min....
each round trip out in the woods is about 1\2mile. there's no power out there other than what you take out there. so if it went flat you would need to take a genrater out there.


for a 10,000LB skidder pulling up to another 8,000LBs with the end of the log dragging i think that's going to take a ""lot"" of juice
how much JUICE would really be needed, ive yet to figure out.....
what i can tell you is the gas model can run a 8 hour day on less than one tank of gas, the tank is 11 or 12 gal tops.

also the steering is done with a hyd piston, the push blade is also hyd.
the cable winch is PTO off the trans no hyd on that its direct drive.
so i figure im looking at one or two more electric motors to run that stuff. those would be running at set speeds, no need for them to change rpms...

on a normal model there's a hyd pump that's 15 GPM 2,000psi at the very most, likely less. it runs the steering and the blade HYDs.
its articulated using one piston for steering (axils are stiff and it bends in the middle), and two pistons for the blade up and down.


under stand this is not a car or truck, this equipment lives 100% of its life off road. so aro is null and void since there geared for under 15 mph...service..




so any one have an idea as to how many bats i need.
or is the amount needed to pull a load far more then could be fit in to it? and still go at least 3.5 miles.....

i figure there's space for about 8+\- Prius bats or 25+\- car bats.




this is not one of are skidders but its a clone of it with nice paint.

[dcb]

yah, not a good application for battery electric, think biodiesel, maybe steam

[Ryland]

If you look at the number of electric tractors out there you will see that people do seem pretty pleased with how they perform, 5 miles seems pretty reasonable if you can get the space for the batteries.

Steve Heckeroth's Yanmar Tractor Conversion

Queen's University's John Deere 755

And if you look at the Farm Show magazine they have a story about an electric tractor every few months as well.

[trooper Tdiesel]

it says there using 10 130ah 12V bats.

and there saying it can "in theory" take 2,300LBs 20 miles at 20 mph, not bad.....would like to know how long it runs a tiller or a mower....that would be more realistic to hours of usable run time.


trouble is 2,300LBs is WAY LESS than what im talking about like over 7,500lbs less....that does not include any working load eather.
also im not talking about driveing around in a parking lot, we have some grades that push\go over the 20% mark and many in the 7 to 15% range..... granted most of the pulling is down hill.

using bat of that size, i think i could jam 30+\- of them in there...




a plug in, diesel-electric is looking more and more practical.

[Patrick]

A gallon of diesel has about 38 kWh. So the diesel unit burns 11 X 38 = 418 kWh in a day.

A Nissan Leaf battery pack is 24 kWh. So to accomplish the same amount of work as the diesel (ignoring differences in efficiencies), you'd need 418/24 = 17 Leaf battery packs. Probably not practical.

If the diesel converts 40% of the energy into useful work and the electric system is 80% efficient, you can cut the battery pack number in half (40/80 = 1/2): 17/2 = 8.5 packs needed. The packs reportedly cost about $9,000 each (on the WAY low side). 8.5 X $9,000 = $76,500 for batteries. Of course if you go with lead-acid, the cost will be lower, but the weight will be higher.

[Ryland]

I really wish there were more tractors with more specs on them on the EValbum.com web site because there are a lot more electric tractors out there and you're right, driving in the dirt is not at all the same to driving in a parking lot.
If you need this to run all day then no, electric is not the way to go, but if a few runs to the woods is all you need then maybe it's exactly the route to go, or if you need a machine for hauling logs around closer to home then it might be ideal as well.
We have an electric forklift at work for this exact reason, we only use it for 10 minutes at a time and half the time we use it is in doors, when the battery pack on it was new it was designed for close to an 8 hour shift per charge, now it's good for half an hour at best but our old forklift took a few minutes to warm up and wouldn't always start, the electric one is much faster to use because you just get on and go, it's also much much safer because it's quite so if one person is keeping an eye on the load the person on the forklift can hear what is going on, not the case at all with an engine running.

It's also hard to compare fuel use to electrical use because with electricity it's turn off when you would otherwise be idling and it can be off going down hills, so really you would only be using electricity when you are asking it to do work.

[trooper Tdiesel]

Originally Posted by Patrick

A gallon of diesel has about 38 kWh. So the diesel unit burns 11 X 38 = 418 kWh in a day.
A Nissan Leaf battery pack is 24 kWh. So to accomplish the same amount of work as the diesel (ignoring differences in efficiencies), you'd need 418/24 = 17 Leaf battery packs. Probably not practical.

the 11 gal a day is for the gas model.

we just got are hands on a diesel model two weeks back and have yet to put it in service, it has some "real" safety issues with the canapy over the seat.
its missing a post, and cracks in many places, if a falling tree hit it. it would not pertect the person running it.
IE your dead..........
so in short, i don't know the hours per gal of a diesel yet...other then guessing.


im guessing it will use about 40% less fuel then the up-draft carb gas engine.
any way you cut it the original drive system is very thrifty considering when these things where made, over 50 years ago.....

Originally Posted by Patrick

If the diesel converts 40% of the energy into useful work and the electric system is 80% efficient, you can cut the battery pack number in half (40/80 = 1/2): 17/2 = 8.5 packs needed. The packs reportedly cost about $9,000 each (on the WAY low side). 8.5 X $9,000 = $76,500 for batteries. Of course if you go with lead-acid, the cost will be lower, but the weight will be higher.

lead-acid bats have 1KW right? or am i off base, 8.5 Nissan Leaf battery packs hmm thats a LOT OF LEAD BATs to = the 8.5 Leaf battery's with 24KW in each

even if that number was down around 6 packs that's still "way more" then i could fit on it.....

[jakobnev]

Originally Posted by trooper Tdiesel

granted most of the pulling is down hill.

How much down hill? Do you need to apply power or brakes?

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by trooper Tdiesel

lead-acid bats have 1KW right? or am i off base, 8.5 Nissan Leaf battery packs hmm thats a LOT OF LEAD BATs to = the 8.5 Leaf battery's with 24KW in each

even if that number was down around 6 packs that's still "way more" then i could fit on it.....

My electric car had 20 6V lead-acid golf cart batteries that weighed 66 pounds each. So that's 1320 pounds of batteries. Total the car weighed about 3500 pounds. I drove it back and forth to work 22 miles round trip on relatively flat ground. I estimate it could go about 40 miles max on a charge. And it wasn't doing any "useful work" when it arrived at its destination.

[Ryland]

20 6v batteries are going to be needed to reach highway speeds, my electric car tops out at 35mph and has a 40 mile range with 8 6v batteries.

But what you want to know is what kind of math it takes to figure out how far you can go on a given grade, scroll down to the bottom of this page and see what they have to say.
Netgain Motors, WARP Motors