6 ms·
Tractor
- theodric 9mo agoIt's a tidy build, and I guess it's a fun kid's toy. Wood is a baffling choice of material for a (lawn) tractor chassis by someone who clearly owns a welder. Don't start lecturing me about Morgans and ash-- that's a whole different thing, and there's a reason they're basically the only serious company still shipping a wooden vehicle chassis. I'm a farmer, I know what working vehicles are subjected to over time, and I know that when plywood gets wet, it swells, warps differentially, splits at its layer boundaries, and starts to twist. Tractors are for driving over land that is often at least damp. This is not a recipe for durability.
- afandian 9mo agoThis is a thing for a child. The aim of such projects is to get it built before they grow out of it. I think given the duration and duty cycle of usage it will be fine.
- stavros 9mo agoThe discourse on here would be much better if commenters at least glanced at the article.
- jstanley 9mo agoThanks, I'll let you know how it holds up after our first round of ploughing.
- gbuk2013 9mo agoCompletely unrelated but https://protohackers.com/ https://protohackers.com/ is another one of James’s projects that I love. :)
- xqb64 9mo agoHe also built a homemade computer from scratch. James is a brilliant guy.
- detritus 9mo agoIf it's for kids, I'd round off those corners or add some kind of semi-flexible skirt around the bottom, because that outward 90° jut on the foot shelf by the front wheel looks potentially... painful.
- pluralmonad 9mo agoI've used a length of old vinyl hose, split open lengthwise, to cover sharp corners/edges on some of my projects. Really saves tarps from tearing along sharp edges.
- IgorPartola 9mo agoI did something similar last summer. My Craftsman LT1400 uses the standard 500cc Briggs motor and that motor has some tragic design flaws that make it grenade itself roughly once a season. I went through a couple of these motors rebuilding them (correctly) until I gave up. I ripped the tractor down the the frame and removed most parts. Got $40 Ryobi walk behind mower motors (42V which is really 36V), some scooter controllers, and pulleys. I used two scooter Li ion batteries but I should have just gotten three large lead acid 12V batteries for more capacity. Still, I can mow for an hour or so and get almost an acre done which includes some hills per charge. It took about 8 total days to build and about $800. The way I set it up is that I have one motor drive the wheels and two more motors on the deck directly driving the blades. The belt system the ICE motor version had was insanely inefficient. This system has like 20% of the power but mowed better and is way more reliable. For $150 I could get a solar array and controller to charge the batteries and never pay for anything but belt and blade replacements for life. The hardest part of the build was lining up the mounting of the drive motor and wiring up all the safety systems (brake sensor, seat sensor, etc). The kicker is that this is a way better product than what I can buy commercially unless I get into the $5k+ territory and is completely user serviceable. No part here is more than $100 and they all readily available. The tractor has enough torque to push my huge picnic table around while I am riding it. I might try seeing if I can plow snow with it next winter.
- sejje 9mo agoI would love to see some photos to cement these ideas. I have plans to mess around with lawn tractors myself.
- IgorPartola 9mo agoI would be happy to share but the tractor is currently buried under a bunch of snow. If you remind me in the spring I will share!
- HeyLaughingBoy 9mo agoWhat, you didn't build a snow blade for it :-)
- rickypp 9mo agoWere it me, I would have started with a pre-2000's Craftsman mower as a base. They have a 6 speed transaxle with a differential (which solves the steering problem mentioned) and a built-in brake, and examples with broken or missing gas engines can be had used for $100 or less quite often. They have that boxy sheet metal look of old tractors too. It would also be possible to adjust the pulley ratios to slow it down or just block off the higher speeds until the kids get a bit older. Granted, I understand that the purpose of a project like this isn't just in the end result. Depends what crafts you want to practice and what's just necessary work around them. There's still quite a bit of fun project left in converting an existing mower to electric and refinishing it to look more like a classic tractor.
- bluGill 9mo agoYou can buy those transaxels (different number of speeds) surplus fairly cheap, but you have to look. Though the goal was a kids toy, and those mowers are too large for that use.
- cucumber3732842 9mo agoKids grow. If it were me I'd just remove the mower deck, throw an extra muffler in its place (because without the deck the engine will be the next loudest thing and I don't wanna listen to it). Maybe lock out the top speeds depending upon age/yard topology. Stuff goes straight to permanent memory at that age so by giving them a "real" tractor there's a lot of potential to learn good lifelong lessons prompt them to ask the kind of questions that result in good teaching.
- MisterTea 9mo agoThis is one I know of off the top of my head: https://surpluscenter.com/power-transmission/transaxles-transmissions-differentials/ https://surpluscenter.com/power-transmission/transaxles-tran...
- sejje 9mo agoWay cheaper to find a broken mower. They're constantly sold dirt cheap in my area with very minor problems, like old gas. People don't know how to fix it, so they buy a new one and sell the old. I bought four working mowers. $500, $250, $220, and $200. One was missing a deck, one was running rough. Otherwise complete. They're all craftsman, one vintage from the 80s. We use one to mow, one to move the trailer, the old one mows but it mostly sits, and the last was a gift for my wonderful neighbors who are old and were still using a walk behind.
- _HMCB_ 9mo agoVideo please.
- einpoklum 9mo agoVideos take a lot more effort to make. Probably better that the guy focused the wor on the tractor than on filming...
- seemaze 9mo agoOof, those welds are ugly. The author comments on the welding at the end of the article, but I'd venture a guess that if using a MIG setup the polarity may also be reversed and/or gas shielding may be wrong. On my machine the flux core wire vs solid core wire with shielding gas require opposite polarities... source: I'm a terrible amateur welder
- convolvatron 9mo agothe last section discusses this. the author was having problems relating the feed and the current settings to the weld characteristics. personally I prefer to manage all that with a pedal and manual feed with a tig
- Tossrock 9mo agoI haven't seen welds that bad since visiting India, where I ran across some so dire I was compelled to photograph them in case the building fell down later: https://imgur.com/a/16FRlEW https://imgur.com/a/16FRlEW Love the spirit of the build, though, and it's a case where weld cleanliness doesn't really matter, so, more power to him.
- jstanley 9mo agoYes I'm using flux-core wire and I do indeed have the polarity set for flux-core. My conception was that we're adding power by increasing the voltage and we're stacking up material by adding wire, so to get good penetration on thick material I want lots of voltage and not much wire feed. But actually it turns out that you make it hotter by increasing the wire feed speed. I don't really see why, but at least now I know. Here's a more recent weld: https://img.incoherency.co.uk/6464 https://img.incoherency.co.uk/6464 - still not great but not nearly as bad.
- seemaze 9mo agoNice weld, and nice project! I'm learning with you.. the polarity was fresh in my mind because I recently got half way through a project with little bb's splattering everywhere before a friend with more knowledge asked if I had recently changed wire. Welding seems to be a lot like baking; It is very deterministic in a sealed environment and the parameters are well understood, but in practice the experts rely heavily on feel and experience more akin to an artist.
- luckydata 9mo agotruly awful craftsmanship, I love it!
- zkmon 9mo agoGarden should be a place where people can touch grass, leaves, flowers, fruits, plants, soil, rocks and maybe trees, without going out to a park. Ensure that children do not miss out on that. I'm not a big fan of anything that makes children to avoid their exposure to walking (prams etc), touch with ground or outside environment.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- RatchetWerks 9mo agoI’m love content like this. It reminds me of the mid-2000s era of the internet. Is this “best” project I’ve seen? In terms of tech,quality,etc No. Neither are mine. This guy built a really fun project for his kids. I love this. As AI slop gets increased, I hope that content like this starts to get filtered up to the world. I also learned about a web-ring from his website. I think this is an artifact from the early Internet. I hope this gets more popular for website discovery reasons https://webring.stavros.io/ https://webring.stavros.io/
- direwolf20 9mo agohttps://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/ https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/
- AloysB 9mo agoI came here to say the exact same thing. This is so refreshing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. No BS, no ads, no sale pitch, no AI, no pretending, nothing. Just a stranger sharing with the world a project he built at home. Those picture of the welds are inspiring. It is as honest as it gets. Loved it. Thank you.
- saalweachter 9mo agoIt's a thing made with no attempt to become rich and famous. What the heck is it doing on HN's front page?
- bob1029 9mo ago> You may be thinking that 350 watts doesn't sound very powerful You might be amazed at how little power you can get away with in an actual tractor. 20HP is close to the upper limit of practicality unless you are running a large commercial operation.
- wepple 9mo agoDriving even basic PTO attachments? That’s borderline
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- andrewstuart 9mo agoSorry to be boring and safety focused but no child should come with 20 feet of that it’s a death trap. Literally children die from riding on such things. Keep your children safe a well and alive, dont let them on anything like this or near one being driven by someone else.
- forgetfreeman 9mo agoDude reinvented Power Wheels from first principles and you're over there claiming a death trap? Questionable premise is questionable. Anyway keeping kids perfectly safe is how you raise high anxiety incompetents. Learning to assess and manage simple risks is a fundamental part of childhood development.
- spiderfarmer 9mo agoProjects like these make me want to buy a laser welder. They are awesome and perfect for hobbyists who want to level up.
- 83 9mo agoYou might want to look up the max thickness and other common issues hobbyist level laser welders have before purchasing, or at a minimum wait for the laser welders to mature a bit more. You'll spend less than half and be far better served with a cheap tig welder at this point in time.
- spiderfarmer 9mo agoI’m mostly concerned about the learning curve. The laser welders I saw can be used blindfolded and offer enough penetration. I noticed a lot of negative comments but mostly from people who spent years honing their craft and feel obligated to gatekeep it a bit.
- jstanley 9mo agoI use a MIG welder but with flux-core wire and no gas, I got it about 12 years ago for £200 (new), it is a perfectly good machine and I am not a good enough welder to get the most out of it. It's much cheaper than the laser stuff. It gets expensive if you want to use gas, but if you stick to flux-core you don't have to.
- matt-p 9mo agoI love this! I appreciate regen breaking will be hard to add without picking a new controller and so on but perhaps you could add a DPDT switch wired into the break that adds in a string of 3 old incandescent 12v break lights.
- Beijinger 9mo agoI want one :-( Other interesting Story about tractors: "In the heartland of American agriculture, a quiet revolution is underway. Farmers, long frustrated by the high costs and restrictive repair policies of leading tractor manufacturers like John Deere, are increasingly turning to simpler, more affordable alternatives from an unlikely source: Belarus. These rugged, no-frills machines from Minsk Tractor Works (MTZ) are gaining traction not just for their price tag, but for their deliberate avoidance of the complex electronics and subscription models that have become the bane of modern farming."
- HeyLaughingBoy 9mo agoThis is new? Farmers have been using Belarus tractors for decades. As far back as 1998, I remember a friend in SK whose father had one on his wheat farm.
- marcelbundle 9mo agooh so there are levels to cardboard-assisted design
- angry_octet 9mo agoWithout an anti-roll device this could be quite dangerous, even for a toy sized machine. A roll bar is a simple and effective precaution.
- wmoxam 9mo agoLiamTronix on Youtube has some videos (ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iEUp5Z1aNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iEUp5Z1aNw) on converting a popular farm tractor (Massey Ferguson 65) to fulling electric. Fun stuff!
- bityard 9mo agoCame here to post the same thing. Very entertaining series of videos!
- fix4fun 9mo agoReally nice project - respect :) Got two questions: 1. How fast it can ride ? If I good estimate (based on max 2750 RPMs for electric motor MY1016 350W 36V, gear ratio ~100:1 and height of rear wheel ~0.5m) it should got about 0.8 m/sec. So really safe for kids and dad :) 2. How long does the battery last ?
- jstanley 9mo agoI think it goes about 6mph. I agree with your maths though, so probably my estimate of the gear ratio is wrong. I don't know how long the battery lasts, we have never driven it for long enough to flatten the battery. While I was building it I used it for about an hour doing several laps of dragging a "trailer" full of rubble from the top of the garden to the bottom (the easy direction - empty load on the way back up) and it became noticeably slower towards the end but still got me up the hill. So I'd say it lasts over an hour.
- fix4fun 9mo agoThanks for info. And once again really nice project :)
- sathackr 9mo agoRelevant -- Snowblower electric conversion https://youtu.be/D8OJFHLiRxM?si=lUZwjFEMoxqveDb5 https://youtu.be/D8OJFHLiRxM?si=lUZwjFEMoxqveDb5
- ufocia 9mo agoHacker News is turning into Hackaday. Sad.
- rubinlinux 9mo agoWonder if the author is aware that in the 1970's during the gas shortages, GE developed an electric lawn tractor called Elec-Trak. See https://myelec-traks.com/E20.html https://myelec-traks.com/E20.html It used DC attachments for everything, lawn mower blades (they sounded like an electric razor), chain saws, snow throwers, tillers, AC inverters etc etc. All powered by 6 golf cart batteries. This build in the article reminds me of the one I owned for a while, was a lot of fun. Hope the kid has as much fun with theirs as I had with mine.