Solar Powered Lawn mower/trailer

[user001]

Hello, I was looking for some help putting together a solar system for my mowers and trailer. I want to purchase 2 Mean Green mowers and set them in a solar trailer. The prices for some of the items seem to be way over priced

S.A.M Solar Canopy System with charge controller...$1,599, 200W Solar flex panels with charge controller (you mount on home)...$817, 2,000 Watt inverter with battery adapter...$699, 25A Fast charger (replacing 10A charger) ...$450.

I got this from the company.
--The NXR only comes with one battery either a LEM 4880 (3acre) or LEM48140 (5acre). We don't have an industrial version for the Nemesis. Although the CXR, which is our commercial mower, has an industrial package that comes with 3 LEM48140 batteries with a run time of up to 7hrs and with the solar panel so it'll add about 30 minutes to your mowing time but also give you the 30 % tax credit. As shown below though, lets say that you only mow for 2 hrs with the NXR and the solar canopy. The solar panel charges 200w an hour so then it'd be be charged 400w after cutting for 2 hrs but the capacity of the mower is 7,000w hours. The solar panel then gave you about 5 more minutes of run time with the big battery on the NXR.--

This is unacceptable I need this to charge quicker and have more power time. They just seem way over priced.

So I wanted to setup a charging station in the trailer, a trailer. A trailer from them is almost10k, where I found a place in Georgia that does same trailer it seems for 1/3 of price. Is anyone familiar with their trailers?

I wanted to use as much solar as I could to charge mowers, and pretty much don't know that much about solar. Any help on what, how you could set this up? would be greatly\y appreciated

[Sunking]

OK first thing is every thing they claim is pure BS. All independent testing shows the so called 5 acre model gets 2 hours run time. No way could you ever run it for 7 hours.

With a battery capacity of 7000 watt hours using a solar to recharge it fully you are talking about 2000 TO 3000 watt solar system, and it would take a full day from sun sun rise to sun down. A 200 watt panel is a bit of a joke and like peeing on a house fire. It would take 10 days to 2 weeks to charge it with solar using a 200 watt panel.

If you mow lawns professionally and insist on using an electric mower from battery power, you need to buy a lot of batteries and chargers to charge at home. Your competition will eat you alive because they do not have that huge expense weighing them down and cutting into profits.

No way can this be done with Solar. A 200 watt panel is nothing but an up sale ADD-ON to make the dealer money. If you do this for a living use gas or diesel commercial mowers and power equipment.

[Mike90250]

The solar panel then gave you about 5 more minutes of run time

200 w panel for 5 minutes extra. That tells you, that for an hour, you need 12 of the 200w panels. That trailer is getting bigger !!

[SunEagle]

Hello user001 and welcome to Solar Panel Talk

Unfortunately both Mike and Sunking are correct. Most companies that sell solar "add on's" like to make claims that are no where near being true. The equipment battery will usually not do what is advertised and the solar equipment is too small to do any type of useful charging in one day. For that matter using solar to recharge a larger battery usually takes a lot of space and money.

Some people have been able to use solar on food trucks and trailers but the amount of panel wattage they have to install may not provide 100% of their daily usage of the battery if their loads are big consumers like those mowers or food cookers.

[Logan5]

you can do it with a half ton of lead acid batteries, gonna reduce fuel economy by more than savings. Plus battery replacement cost, plus reduced handling, towing, plus tire ware. reduced aerodynamics due to panels on top of over loaded trailer. Time for a bigger trailer. Now if your /oops I mean customers are paying extra for specialized quiet lawn service maybe.

[SunEagle]

you can do it with a half ton of lead acid batteries, gonna reduce fuel economy by more than savings. Plus battery replacement cost, plus reduced handling, towing, plus tire ware. reduced aerodynamics due to panels on top of over loaded trailer. Time for a bigger trailer. Now if your /oops I mean customers are paying extra for specialized quiet lawn service maybe.

Those mowers are pretty cool looking. Although I would imagine that anyone going that route with multiple customers would have to invest in a lot of spare battery packs @ $5.6k each. That might be even cheaper then building a solar charging system on a trailer the could barely charge a single battery pack.

[DanKegel]

Clients willing to pay extra for electric mowing might be willing to let you charge a spare battery while you mow....
that'd be a lot cheaper than lugging around a bunch of solar panels.

[J.P.M.]

Clients willing to pay extra for electric mowing might be willing to let you charge a spare battery while you mow....
that'd be a lot cheaper than lugging around a bunch of solar panels.

Provided you can find someone dumb enough to pay more for the same task of lawn mowing, determining whether or not the customer has suitable electrical service capable of charging a set of batteries at about the same rate as mowing discharges them remains, not to mention charging rates for the batteries may be longer than it takes to cut the grass.

[Sunking]

Provided you can find someone dumb enough to pay more

That would be Dan.

[jflorey2]

Hello, I was looking for some help putting together a solar system for my mowers and trailer. I want to purchase 2 Mean Green mowers and set them in a solar trailer.

Here's my suggestion.

1) Get a tow-capable hybrid vehicle with a full hybrid assist. (i.e. not a weak hybrid.) A Tahoe or Yukon for example.
2) Get a 300V 2-4kW inverter. Connect it to the traction battery pack.
3) Tow your trailer with the hybrid and use the inverter to charge your batteries.
4) Put a solar panel on the top to keep the 12V (starter) battery charged. If anyone asks, tell them that the solar panel is charging the batteries (which is somewhat true.)

Or if you don't want to do that, put a larger alternator on your tow vehicle, put in a larger 12V battery and run a ~2kW 12V inverter, paying careful attention to protection and cable lengths (since getting 2kW out of a 12V system is going to be a bit of a challenge.) Charge your mowers with the inverter. Then use the panel to charge the 12V battery.

[DanKegel]

Provided you can find someone dumb enough to pay more for the same task of lawn mowing

It's quieter; some people prefer that. And of course, some people simply want to reduce emissions.

lawnandlandscape.com/article/lawn-landscape-0410-fuel-thought-alternative-energy-green/ is one anecdotal report of an electric lawn mowing service being able to charge premium rates.

agza.net/garfield-park/ is a report about a park near my house that uses all electric equipment.

It's a niche market, but it does seem to exist.

As for plugging in at customer sites, lugging around a few spare charged batteries is probably easier. And you could set up your solar panels permanently then, rather than dragging them around with you.

[Mike90250]

By the time you find greenies dumb enough to pay 2x for electric mowing, they should be ripping out their lawns and planting veggies instead. Maybe an electric tractor to
break up the sod to prep for a garden. Silly me, I just used a diesel tractor to chew up the dirt for the garden.

[inetdog]

Silly me, I just used a diesel tractor to chew up the dirt for the garden.

At least that is greener than a coal fired tractor.

[SunEagle]

At least that is greener than a coal fired tractor.

What would be greener would be to let the grass grow and not cut it or plant more trees and let them grow (even it they block the sunlight landing on your pv panels) and stop using any fossil fuel if CO2 reduction is really important to you.

[J.P.M.]

What would be greener would be to let the grass grow and not cut it or plant more trees and let them grow (even it they block the sunlight landing on your pv panels) and stop using any fossil fuel if CO2 reduction is really important to you.

Among other attributes, my 1st wife was a gardener. I grew veggies with some success back in the day. She once brought home a book: "Edible Landscaping", which I somewhat mockingly retitled "Eat Your Yard", which is basically about replacing grass with food. Nice theory, but like a lot of other treehugger stuff, not very practical or thoughtful of others in the reality of a developed society, and seemed mostly bereft of common sense.

A few folks here/there in a few urban/suburban areas have done such things, usually to the dismay of neighbors more attuned to a lifestyle of "pleasant valley Sundays" and seeing grass in a front yard rather than Zucchini.