How or Can Solar charge my new 82v mower.

[drps10]

Thanks everyone! I tried doing a bunch of research and searched this forum and others too. I am either confused or missing something.

I bought a new commercial mower for my house (Greenworks CZ60R) and would like to know what is involved to have solar charge the mower. How do I get a Solar system charge this mower? Do I put solar output into a battery (which I don't mind because this would allow better charging since solar isn't constant charging from cloud coverage and all) or is there a stepper to get it to a higher voltage?

I just don't know how this part works when solar outputs less voltage than what I need and no battery outputs that are this high either.

Thank you for the help.

 

[Supervstech]

Easiest thing is connect solar to a charge controller,to a battery bank, then connect inverter to bank, then tie your mower charger to that...
However, both bank,and inverter needs to have the capacity to power the charger.

 

[drps10]

I was thinking that was going to the route that I would have to take. It's a 16kw battery, would it be better to get a smaller battery bank and let the mower charge off of that frequently (it would charge and draw down a lot to charge mower completely) or get a bigger battery bank and have less cycles?

 

[Supervstech]

I was thinking that was going to the route that I would have to take. It's a 16kw battery, would it be better to get a smaller battery bank and let the mower charge off of that frequently (it would charge and draw down a lot to charge mower completely) or get a bigger battery bank and have less cycles?

Best to post the specs of the charger and let's do the math.

 

[drps10]

Best to post the specs of the charger and let's do the math.

I will have the mower this week and will get that information!

 

[400bird]

Considering it is a commercial mower, do you need to use it daily? Or is it more like once per week?

You could buy a charge controller that will charge a 82 volt. But, then you would need to program the min/max voltages, etc. Plus figure out how to connect the charge controller to the battery.

Using the factory AC charger is likely the easier/safer route. However, the only charger that came up in a quick google is 240 vac at 13 amps!
If that is really the smallest charger they have, there goes any chance of a small system recharging this over the course of a week.

 

[drps10]

Its for my house only, so if it takes time to recharge that is fine. I just purchased this and will take delivery soon. I know I'm coming here without all the info we need, but wasn't sure if it's even possible. Knowing that it could be possible, I will look into the specs better. I think i found that it is a 220v 22amp charger that will charge it 9.5 hrs. I don't know how much will be used up in one cut (4 acres). If I only need to recharge 4kw per cut, time isn't to critical. The info says it will cut for 16 hrs and I believe it will take me 1.5hrs to cut.

 

[Bkord]

could you just offset the power your house uses with solar. Then plug the mower into your house?

 

[drps10]

could you just offset the power your house uses with solar. Then plug the mower into your house?

I wish I could but it is not economical to do so. Really the price of this project isn't economical either, but a fun project. I am all electric house that I've been implementing efficiency where I can, but the price we pay for electricity is low $.053 (.10 after taxes and distrubitoins, etc) I monitor my use and on a low day I use about 70kw and a high day 120kw (a/c, pool, pool heater, hot water.....). I would never break even with the cost of everything or even justify the offset of going solar.

 

[Supervstech]

22A is likely the max it will pull, rarely other than original startup.
But 22A is only 5300W, so a decent all in one split phase, or even a low buck euro 230V inverter would do the trick.

Better to get a split phase, so you could use the power for other things when not charging the mower.

 

[Supervstech]

Top of every page is the solar schematics link, choose 48v systems, click on the 6048, and get some batteries...
5kW at say 10 hours is...
50kWh... so...
Not cheap by any means...
You will need 10kW of panels to fully charge up in a day...
Less if there is a multi day window to recharge the bank.

I would start with 5 or 10kWh of battery, the inverter and 2000W of solar and see how it performed.
Upgrade from there if more is needed.

 

[400bird]

To be honest, I was expecting the thing to come with a small, maybe 600-1000 watt, charger.
Similar to how every EV includes a level 1, 1500 watt, EVSE.

If that was the case, you could get away with a very small system. It doesn't take much solar to accumulate 16kWh over the course of a week.

 

[justinm001]

Looks like it's charger R0201227-00 which says 120v/15a or 240v 22a . You should just plug it in.

If you want to play with solar get some panels and like a sunnyboy then feed the grid if you can get a net metering agreement and have the utility swap your meter. This is my plan with 10k panels and have same .10/kwh you do and seems profitable enough.

If you're dead set on using solar find an aio inverter charger that'll handle 2000w (120×15) and plug the charger into it. You'll lose a bit converting DC to ac to DC but won't need to worry about blowing up the battery

 

[justinm001]

Top of every page is the solar schematics link, choose 48v systems, click on the 6048, and get some batteries...
5kW at say 10 hours is...
50kWh... so...
Not cheap by any means...
You will need 10kW of panels to fully charge up in a day...
Less if there is a multi day window to recharge the bank.

I would start with 5 or 10kWh of battery, the inverter and 2000W of solar and see how it performed.
Upgrade from there if more is needed.

I don't really see the point in op getting batteries since he'll only be losing solar when sun is under 90v or he's using the mower which is a couple hours a week and 4kw, so has to make 5kw in a week.

Problem is he needs 5300w to run the 220v charger or 1800w to run the 120v charger. So at least 2000w of panels to run 120v and just have it turn on when he's making full sun which should be at least a few hours for a few days. And seems he has a few cuts per charge so can withstand a few storms.

The 5300w is another problem entirely. He'll need batteries or 6000w of solar.

But op is thinking ditch the AC charger and run off DC only. Which would make perfect sense in theory. Get over 100v of solar and use a charge controller that'll output 80v with a good profile. But we don't know if the batteries can be DC charged and the profile.

 

[OzSolar]

Years ago I had an old school 36v GE Elec-Trak Riding Mower from the early 70's that had been given to me. It really worked great for our ~1 acre in the burbs but I gave to a friend when we moved the to the county.

I used a small solar array and a MPPT charge controller to charge it between mowing. It took a few days but it got it done. That challenge is there's not any readily available MPPT charge controllers that can deal with an 82V battery. There's a lot for 48v and a few of them can go up to 72v nominal.

 

[740GLE]

I wish I could but it is not economical to do so. Really the price of this project isn't economical either, but a fun project. I am all electric house that I've been implementing efficiency where I can, but the price we pay for electricity is low $.053 (.10 after taxes and distrubitoins, etc) I monitor my use and on a low day I use about 70kw and a high day 120kw (a/c, pool, pool heater, hot water.....). I would never break even with the cost of everything or even justify the offset of going solar.

Sounds like a modern manual push mower is the most efficient option?

I’ve seen a new Fiskers model that’s mighty impressive!!

 

[Bluedog225]

Op-we are still waiting for the elegant simplicity of a solar panel to end use device like your mower. Close but not yet.

 

[kromc5]

I just recently bought the commercial standup and it came with a 120v charger which is supposed to do 22 amps dc side. I need to look under the battery compartment and see if I can get a clamp on something. It has the same size battery as yours.

 

[dianea]

Waiting for the day when higher voltage systems happen. Would be nice to have the next level at 96 volt systems, which could be adjusted down.

 

[justinm001]

Higher voltages are too dangerous. 50v is the low voltage wiring limit iirc. So anything 50 and under doesn't need to comply with all the electrical stuff.