Electric vehicles can't
 

I hear that electric vehicles are wimpy or can't do things a gasoline powered car can. Sure they have better range, but they cost more to operate, a lot more.
This is why my mpge is so low. Even with my horrific mpge I'm only looking at 20 to 30 cents per day electric costs.

A few days ago I got 10 pallets, this time I got more.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1527712149

I wanted to test the tractive force the leaf could produce so I hooked it up to my nearly 400lb, 8ft wide chain harrow.
It took about 10kw to pull it 9mph and dragged it around for about an hour. Need some A/T tires up front. Just turn the traction control off.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1527712149

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1527712149

Pushing the boundaries, here. Some serious tires needed. You could have a whole new modder category.

I decided to get the leaf a spare tire. Instead of a using a single worn down eco tire I think I will pickup 2 new A/T tires if I can find them in that size or at least a mud and snow rated tire.

During Desert Storm I watched a news clip about helicopters dragging chain link across the desert to set off land mines. When I was in Afghanistan we had expensive trucks and nervous Soldiers.

Nobody had ever heard of the chain link technique.

Does this work for little league fields, too?

While I'm no EOD, I'd think the difference is that chain link can be effective in clearing a minefield, but worthless for IEDs.

How about pressure plates?

There are chain harrows for base ball fields, they just don't weigh 400lb, since you aren't trying to rip weeds out of the ground and knock surface rocks loose.

You have land mines in your Little League fields? Remind me not to move to Arizona :-)

Embrace the low mpge.
Since Thursday afternoon I have been dragging the trailer with the leaf, brought home another load of pallets, moved an A/C unit from my new house to the rental, got the whole home sized swamp cooler from the rental house and brought it to the new place, moved all the clay pipes I dug out of the ground at the rental a few years back and brought them to the new place so I can reuse them to make a french drain. Moving fire wood, took the leaf and trailer to some yard sales.
I bought more trees, potting soil, mulch, drainage rock for around the house.
Being going back and forth to the rental hauling a leaf load of tools.
Friday and Saturday I put over 100 miles each day on the leaf, pretty much non stop drive, charge, drive charge.
This leaf with the trailer is doing stuff people would normally use a pickup truck for.
I'm not even trying to drive for max efficiency. I'm driving the leaf as a work vehicle and I am still #2 for fuel economy on the electric leader board.

Not to get too off topic, but what are you doing with all the pallets? JJ

He is building a fort and not giving you the password! :)

I am collecting plastic one time use and broken wood pallets for fire wood.
The plastic pallets lay in contact with the dirt, i put 4 to 6 plastic pallets together and I stack round, split, ripped logs along with scrap lumber and chopped up pallets until the stack reaches 4 to 6 feet high.
The 2 year old and up fire wood will be burned in my coal furnace this winter. I'm not doing $300 power bills again this winter.
I have salvaged some of the nicer hard wood planks and put them on my lumber pile.
I have set aside the nicest whole pallets and I will likely resell them.

I got a 20 pallet load with the leaf this morning.
The round trip depleted more than 70% of the battery pulling the trailer 12 miles empty and 12 miles back stacked with pallets as high as I can stack them.

Nice find.
JJ

I was also able to use the leaf to jump start my diesel tractor, the battery was totally flat from me leaving it on 2 days before.
My big 2 gauge jumper cables did the job.

So the higher discharge rates don't seem to be causing any thermal issues?

Typical motor failure mode is roasting winding wires until insulation fails. Duncan over at DIY cars is typical.

There are sensors on the system to warn of overheat?

It has liquid cooling for the motor.
The battery can over heat if it never gets a chance to cool off, it gets over 100°F during the day here but drops down to the 60s most nights allowing the battery to cool.

I was told I should get a pickup if im going to get pallets.
Ha. Hahahhahaha.
Obviously they haven't seen how many pallets I put on my trailer.
I usually get between 12 and 20 pallets.
I get about 2 miles per kwh. Still about 60mpge.

So with trailer and pallets about 500 wh/mi. What are the differences loaded and empty? I'm trying to understand loading effects the pallets provide.

Not bad since the ranger averages 430. Haven't retried since I moved to flat and level.

What kind of LRR tires do you have on your trailer?



:D

They are steel belted load range E 12 inch trailer tires.
Steel belted tire is going to be LRR compared to bias ply.
Most small trailer tires are bias ply.
One of the tires was a little low on pressure.
Normally the trailer tires run 60 psi.

This summer I was getting 4.4 to 4.7 miles per kwh with out the trailer. That's something over130mpge, it's so high it doesn't even matter.

The load of pallets more than cuts the energy economy in half.

Beats the crap out of a pickup that never gets over 20mpg.

So about $2.50 worth of electricity is dragging home a couple days' worth of firewood. $300/month utilities for heating the grid-sourced way vs. about $40/month for heating the home-sourced way.

Sounds like an economically viable application to me.

I figure each pallet on average contains 40lb of wood.
40lb of wood is about 400,000 BTUs of heat.
Each pallet should provide heat all day when it's cold and 2 or 3 pallets will get burned over night.
So each 20 pallet trailer load of should provide at least 4 or 5 days worth of heat.
Or about $10 worth of electricity per day.

I was thinking that loaded was much worse than trailer empty especially if it is uphill. More like 2/3 so that the average both ways was twice as much.

Putting the trailer on empty drops energy economy down to around 4 miles per kwh.

So if I understand what you just said, loaded trailer isn't drawing that much extra over just empty trailer.

Not really a big difference but enough to effect range some.

Nobody sees the hilarious irony of using an EV to fuel a wood stove?

Now if I could go get coal with the EV that would be poetically circular.

Meh, wood is a "sustainable resource".

I burn natural gas for heat.

Oil Pan seems to be consistent in doing what is economically prudent.

I could get gas service but it would cost up to $2,000 for the install. Up to $2,000 for a natural gas furnace and that's assuming I could install the furnace my self, $500 or so for a natural gas water heater, up to $1,000 for a natural gas range and $250 to $500 for a gas dryer, but I already have a gas dryer.

I'm still going to get a gas range and convert it to run on propane. I figure a 100lb propane bottle will last up to a year.

I'm sure you could do all that for much less if you do the work yourself. Renting a trencher doesn't cost much. You should see if you can strike a deal with the gas company because they might be willing to foot most of the cost of install if you tell them you'll be running all the gas appliances mentioned. Maybe ask them if you can pay materials and they do the install.

Gas dryers can be had for $50 to free, and many of the other appliances can be had cheaply as well.

Your time traveling to get firewood has to factor into the cost too. I'm a big fan of instant on gas heat. I'd not install a wood burning fireplace in a new home even though I love them. Gas is just too cheap and convenient.

Have not you thought about this solution? E.g. such:
https://serving.photos.photobox.com/...149320ea3e.jpg

NM requires a licensed and bonded contractor to install gas service before they will turn on the gas. They specifically made it so DIY initial gas installs can't happen.
I can change over the water heater no problem.
For furnaces I have replaced gas with gas, fuel oil with gas but never heat pump to gas.
I actually looked for almost a year for a cheap gas dryer in good condition. All I could find was junk or brand new for $500. I eventually just went to the local used appliance shop and got one for about $260.
My wife already has the gas range she wants picked out, I don't remember exactly which one it is but it's not cheap.

I like the non electrical simplicity of a wood stove and the inherent design of having large amounts of fuel stored on site.
The coal furnace has electrical blowers but I have a 24v forklift battery out in the garage and an samlex power inverter. The battery should be able to power the blowers via power inverter for a few days when the power goes out.

That's cute but I already have a 17.5kw generator on its own trailer.

My parents either paid nothing, or $100 to have the gas company run a line 300ft.

NM might require a pro to do the install, but that's why I'm saying you could haggle the price by prepping the site with a trench. Doesn't hurt to see if they'll work with you on price. There are even funds utilities have for low income people, and you could approach it as a necessity to reduce your home operating costs.

I picked up 360lb of 3.25'' by 6'' I beam, with a weight of around 12lb per liner foot with the leaf and trailer.
I'm going to weld it up and hold up the roof of one of my buildings.

Ok tesla: do this......

Oh I forgot, there's no hitch available



Attachment 25009

Only if you then burn it to generate power to charge the Leaf. :D

Around half of the power generated in NM comes from coal.
The closest place I might be able to get coal from is the coal fired power plant.