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Challenges: Auxiliary Battery and PTO System

6:08
14:33
25.4K views

At 6:08 in

Americas First Electric Tractor Company BANKRUPT...Why?

What happens here

The tractor relies on a small auxiliary 12-volt battery which, if it dies, prevents the main battery from charging, causing significant inconvenience. The presenter mentions his tractor (3 years old) is already on its third 12-volt battery. Another critical issue is the screen, which sometimes pixelates and is crucial for displaying battery life and speed. Furthermore, the PTO system (Power Take-Off) requires the tractor to be moving to engage attachments like a mower deck. This 'live PTO' design limits its functionality for tasks requiring stationary power and significantly drains the main battery if used for heavy work at low speeds (e.g., mowing tall grass at 2 mph drains the battery in about 2 hours).

Goal: Specific operational issues, such as problems with the auxiliary 12-volt battery and an outdated PTO system, are highlighted as significant drawbacks.

Tools and materials

  • Auxiliary 12V battery
  • Screen/Dashboard

What they say

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12volt battery engages everything to do evidently with the charging system on this machine. So at one point, and some other owners experienced this too, I went to plug it in to charge it, it wouldn't take charge. Why wouldn't it take charge? I couldn't figure it out. Well, that little 12volt battery had gone bad. This tractor is about 3 years old and it's on its third little 12volt battery. Now, another problem that these tractors had is the screen. Sometimes the screen on these tractors and the body of it is made by Farm Track and I believe it's outfitted by Select Track with all the electricals and electronics. Well, these screens tend to have a problem. They get kind of kind of pixelated, I guess, is the word for it. They're not very complex, but there are problems with the screen, and the screen is what tells you how much charge you have, how fast you're going, all that stuff, all that information that you need, and that screen's right on the dashboard. The final thing, I think the nail in the coffin with this tractor, aside from the price, that's a nail in the coffin. $35,000 is a lot to fork over uh without a government subsidy for an electric tractor. 35 grand is is very expensive. But the next bad thing was you had to be moving. So like with old farmall tractors of yester year of the 1950s and60s, you had to be moving in order for the blades on your mower deck to work. or if you put a roto tiller behind this, you'd have to be moving. So, you couldn't engage your tiller or your mowing deck or anything was PTO driven by the rear of this tractor. You couldn't engage it unless the tractor was moving forward. That posed a lot of problems. You have to mow in an extremely low gear. In order to mow, you've got to really, really creep. I'm talking like 2 m an hour in order to mow for the tractor to have enough power to cut through grass, you know, that was as tall as the hood on that tractor. It just kind of bogged down and it would eat up and consume a ton of energy if you weren't going super super slow. So, you could go really fast and mow and it

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