Homemade Battery Booster Cart

[mwilson]

After burning up several gasoline powered booster units we started building these. We have now increased the battery count from 4 to 6. Woo Hoo, this thing will boost a truck. Also went to vice grips instead of squeeze clamps for a better connection.

 

[B.G. Smith]

Wow, cool, I mean HOT. bg

 

[GCroyle]

I see the beginnings of Uncle Mike's all electric cars coming to a used car lot near you really soon. Put a starter motor on that puppy and HANG ON! Needs decals badly.

 

[TFucili]

Purely out of curiosity, Mike, did the boosters fail electrically, or engine failure?
I assume the next generation Mikey's Motorific Booster Blaster will have traction motors???

On Edit: I see GCroyle beat me to the drive idea!

 

[Shadrach]

Mike Technically you should have the positive cable coming off one end of the string of batteries and the negative cable coming off the opposite end. That way you are drawing power through the entire lot instead of just then battery. It will work the way it is wired of course, but the other way is better. Nice set up btw.

What did you do scab them out of Freightliners in the back lot :-laf
David

 

[KHellewell]

The Can-Ann would make a great tow vehicle in the snow packed parking lot..

 

[Wayne M.]

3000 amps is just fine. This one has mileage on it.

 

[Jim W]

Looks good Mike!

You need to add a battery disconnect key out of a CAT tractor; that way only you will be able to use the cart.

Now is that for the CAN-AM so it can run really quite in the woods on an Electric motor?

Jim

 

[mwilson]

Purely out of curiosity, Mike, did the boosters fail electrically, or engine failure?
I assume the next generation Mikey's Motorific Booster Blaster will have traction motors???

On Edit: I see GCroyle beat me to the drive idea!

The Start All's have generators. What inevitability happens is that the boostet unit will run out of gas mid boost when the tech is elsewhere. Once the motor quits the voltage in the vehicle battery starts turning the generators which burns them up. Same way that an IH Cub Cadet uses the generator as a starting motor.

 

[B.G. Smith]

Would a big diode prevent this? I have some from a big dc welding machine. bg

 

[TFucili]

The Start All's have generators. What inevitability happens is that the boostet unit will run out of gas mid boost when the tech is elsewhere. Once the motor quits the voltage in the vehicle battery starts turning the generators which burns them up. Same way that an IH Cub Cadet uses the generator as a starting motor.

Gotcha! Very familiar with starter/generators from my tractor dealership days. It's astounding to me that those units don't have a safeguard against that!!

 

[mwilson]

I see the beginnings of Uncle Mike's all electric cars coming to a used car lot near you really soon. Put a starter motor on that puppy and HANG ON! Needs decals badly.

At the least it needs some Freightliner Of Maine mudflaps with chrome weights...

 

[w6pea]

At the least it needs some Freightliner Of Maine mudflaps with chrome weights...

Right on. :-laf Nice set up you got there.

 

[mweiman]

The Start All's have generators. What inevitability happens is that the boostet unit will run out of gas mid boost when the tech is elsewhere. Once the motor quits the voltage in the vehicle battery starts turning the generators which burns them up. Same way that an IH Cub Cadet uses the generator as a starting motor.

I had this same thing happen to our startall several years ago. The generators were completely enclosed under a metal shield other than a few small holes to let air in. Made it hard to put the fire out. Goodall sent a kit of some sort that was supposed to prevent this from happening when I rebuilt it. The goodall unit works decent but is very expensive. The weak link seems to be the cables and clamps on most battery boosters or chargers. I like that set up with the vise grips.