steveo
100 kW
Hey everyone,
I thought i'd share my little project. I recently purchase a Snow Joe ION18SB Snow blower to clear my driveway and at the same time save my back. It has a 500lb throw rating which is quite low compared to a gasser unit of the same size.I ran it with a 12s3p 15ah turnigy battery (i purchased the unit without battery), first impression on a light snow fall of about 8 inches or soo... worked like a charm. Second snow fall came along.. and i waited till the end of the day to use the blower, this time the snow was a bit more heavy, the unit still worked well, however it would start to struggle if i didnt give it a little more time when pushing it along. I should mention one of the reasons i bought the unit was that is was battery powered, and brushless!
So i decided to crack open it's little plastic covers, and disect its internals. Turns out there is a small brushless 3 phase 500w est sensorless motor with a tiny 500w or 20amp 6 fet controller set to run with the oem 40v lithium ion battery.
So naturally I modified it's controller starting with removing its cheap chinese transistors and replacing those with 6 genuine irfb4110, then of course thickening up those tiny pcb traces.. and doubling up the oem fuse from 40amp to 80 amp, adding two fuse holders as well (i was not sure of its original current rating before modifiying.. should of amp clamped it!). Put some nice proper teflon insulators.. proper screws with lock washers.. new teflon tape... some fresh thermal paste, and i sealed up the controller. After battling the covers to put the blower back together she was ready for more snow.
I defenatly did notice a improvement, this time I did amp clamp it on the next snow fall and got 35amp peak @ 46v nominal pack voltage. Still sluggish in the really wet stuff, I have yet to upgrade it's 14 gauge wires where I can.. and upgrade some of the cheap chinese connectors to try and reduce some voltage sag. I will also boost up the current rating to around 50 to 60amps as i feel that's what i would be happy with and i feel it should take it just fine since duty cycle is not constant.. at least when i'm doing my driveway anyways.
I'll leave you with some photos and videos below, I hope you enjoyed the read
https://youtu.be/o003TpCSZuE
happy holidays everyone!
-Steveo
I thought i'd share my little project. I recently purchase a Snow Joe ION18SB Snow blower to clear my driveway and at the same time save my back. It has a 500lb throw rating which is quite low compared to a gasser unit of the same size.I ran it with a 12s3p 15ah turnigy battery (i purchased the unit without battery), first impression on a light snow fall of about 8 inches or soo... worked like a charm. Second snow fall came along.. and i waited till the end of the day to use the blower, this time the snow was a bit more heavy, the unit still worked well, however it would start to struggle if i didnt give it a little more time when pushing it along. I should mention one of the reasons i bought the unit was that is was battery powered, and brushless!
So i decided to crack open it's little plastic covers, and disect its internals. Turns out there is a small brushless 3 phase 500w est sensorless motor with a tiny 500w or 20amp 6 fet controller set to run with the oem 40v lithium ion battery.
So naturally I modified it's controller starting with removing its cheap chinese transistors and replacing those with 6 genuine irfb4110, then of course thickening up those tiny pcb traces.. and doubling up the oem fuse from 40amp to 80 amp, adding two fuse holders as well (i was not sure of its original current rating before modifiying.. should of amp clamped it!). Put some nice proper teflon insulators.. proper screws with lock washers.. new teflon tape... some fresh thermal paste, and i sealed up the controller. After battling the covers to put the blower back together she was ready for more snow.
I defenatly did notice a improvement, this time I did amp clamp it on the next snow fall and got 35amp peak @ 46v nominal pack voltage. Still sluggish in the really wet stuff, I have yet to upgrade it's 14 gauge wires where I can.. and upgrade some of the cheap chinese connectors to try and reduce some voltage sag. I will also boost up the current rating to around 50 to 60amps as i feel that's what i would be happy with and i feel it should take it just fine since duty cycle is not constant.. at least when i'm doing my driveway anyways.
I'll leave you with some photos and videos below, I hope you enjoyed the read
https://youtu.be/o003TpCSZuE
happy holidays everyone!
-Steveo
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