# Electric tug motor



## Andy.Baloo (Aug 11, 2012)

hi l have stumbled on this old airport tug that used to drag baggage trollies around for a living but now it sleeps in the corner of a scarp yard getting ready to be turned into sardine tins for its second life

can anyone express an opinion or or ideas on how useful it might be for my project, l want to build a little a maintenance truck a bit like a gator for pottering around my field doing gardening duty, so l dont need a hi top speed 15 to 20 mph would be plenty, maybe less l am more interested in run time but l guess thats a function of the battery pack rather than the motor

l took some pics of it but l dident have a proper camera with me so they are not to clever quite a big diameter motor with a little prop shaft off the back end to a meaty little axle that has a reduction box on the nose of the diff, l couldent see if there was anything on the other end of the motor, control gear looks "past its sell buy date" me thinks,
they are going to lift it out for me to get some better pics

hard to read the plate on the motor in the photos.
voltage is 67v
revs 1300 rpm
series motor
rating 1 hour
HP 12

and they are talking £200 for the whole truck, good bad or average ??

































































since this was a slow moving tug that pulled a lot and l am building a slow moving truck that can tow a lot common sense says this will be ok ?

Andy


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Looks nice to me!

Is it this sort of thing?









That motor, how big is it? 12" diameter or there abouts? That will be heavy!
Depending on what you need to carry/drag about you could probably get away with a golf buggy's 7" motor and suitably low gearing.

The axle will be a very low ratio, idea tractor axle....

It would be worth having all the cable and contactors off it.
Being direct drive, by the looks of it, there will be a reversing contactor or BIG switch somewhere, that will be worth having too.

In fact anything electrical is worth grabbing while it is available, including the fuses. All saves finding, and paying for, them later.


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## aeroscott (Jan 5, 2008)

The copper cable is worth the 200 . great find !


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## Andy.Baloo (Aug 11, 2012)

Woodsmith said:


> Looks nice to me!
> 
> Is it this sort of thing?
> 
> ...



hi Woody

yes that is exactly what it is, l might be having the whole thing in which case l might send for the logbook 

it has a nice chunky little back axle, there is a label on it which l had to wipe clean to read, you will never guess what it said on it ......................
thats right it said " Woodies axle" lol 

the motor is at least 12" maybe a bit more, there is a hammer in one pic that measures 12" for scale 

second last picture shows a load of grey cabinets to the right, l think they are the chargers will find out more


Andy


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

LOL!

I think that motor is going to be in the region of about 110-120kg, a significant proportion of the overall weight of your 'gator'.

However, there are a few of us, like Toddshotrods and Jimdear2, who wouldn't see that as an immediate problem....

I am seriously thinking about my 12" motor for my tractor mk3 and using low speed torque to over come any lack of gears...


You should be able to run that at 144v with an Open Revolt controller kit.


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## Andy.Baloo (Aug 11, 2012)

Woodsmith said:


> LOL!
> 
> I think that motor is going to be in the region of about 110-120kg, a significant proportion of the overall weight of your 'gator'.
> 
> ...


l would join your trio who thinks the weight might help with traction, if this was a buggy l would be dead against it lol

144v shocking 

can l run a normal car altenator of the prop shaft to charge a normal lead acid battery who's only function would be to operate the hydraulic tipper motor and maybe lights ?


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Andy.Baloo said:


> 144v shocking
> 
> can l run a normal car altenator of the prop shaft to charge a normal lead acid battery who's only function would be to operate the hydraulic tipper motor and maybe lights ?


Voltage gives you the ability to have more motor speed but more importantly it reduces the current for the amount of power you want.
You can decide the voltage based on the controller you get. The Open Revolt will handle any pack voltage from 0v to 144v. You will be fine at, say, 72v but current will be twice what it would be at 144v. That means that the batteries will not be as happy and cables will need to be bigger to prevent I^2R losses and more heat will need to be dissipated from the controller.
I run 48v as that is the controller I have (and I only have 4 batteries anyway) but I would be happier at 72v or 96v as the current will be less when I break the next axle, again!


You could run an alternator but it would be very inefficient, though cheap.

You would be better having a good deep cycle battery and just charge it when you charge the pack each day.
Alternatively you can get a DC-DC converter to convert your pack voltage to 13.5v to charge the battery.


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