Hi Gary,
It's been a long time since I've written, but I did want to call
your attention (and that of visitors to your site) to a good source
for 24vdc motors. As you may recall, one big problem encountered by
people who wanted to replicate my experience building a
battery-powered lawnmower (
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Vehicles/LeeMower.htm)
was obtaining the same or similar 24vdc motor. The Tecumseh motor I
used is apparently not to be had anywhere anymore, at any price.
Other kinds of new 24vdc motors, suitable for mower use, are
both difficult to find and expensive.
One good source that I've been exploiting in my local area is used
24vdc motors that are commonly found in B&D cordless lawnmowers.
I've had an ad running in my local Craigslist for a couple of months
now ("Non-working cordless lawnmowers wanted") and I've been
successful in obtaining 8 of them so far, at prices ranging from $0
to $20. The secret that no one seems to know or want to admit is
that there are only three things that can go bad with a cordless
mower:
(1) the electronic circuit board (75% of the time),
(2) the batteries (24.9% of the time), and
(3) the motor (0.1% of the time).
I've never figured out why B&D felt they needed an electronic
circuit board (except to jack up the price and insure some repair
business), so I always throw it away - thus, 75% of the time I get a
perfectly good motor and two usable 17Ah AGM batteries for $20 or
less. When the batteries are bad, it's usually because they haven't
been charged or maintained properly, and I can usually rejuvenate
them with my smart battery charger (with desulphinator). And
lastly, I've yet to buy a non-working cordless mower where the motor
was bad - I'm batting 8 for 8 as far as good motors in non-working
mowers.
In the case of the B&D 24v cordless mower, the motor is brushed
rather than PM, and it's rated at approx 1.5 hp. Since it's mounted
on the B&D plastic deck with three bolts, it comes off easily and is
just as easy to mount on a mower deck of your own choosing or
design. And lastly, the shaft is tapped for mounting a blade, so
that's another plus.
Anyway, I've had a lot of luck with these motors in building more
lawnmowers, and in other projects as well - hopefully some of your
visitors will have similar success.
Lee
The Black and Decker electric lawn mower motors.
