[HN Gopher] Tractor
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Tractor
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 121 points
Date : 2026-02-03 21:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (incoherency.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (incoherency.co.uk)
| theodric wrote:
| It's a tidy build, and I guess it's a fun kid's toy. Wood is a
| baffling choice of material for a (lawn) tractor chassis by
| someone who clearly owns a welder. Don't start lecturing me about
| Morgans and ash-- that's a whole different thing, and there's a
| reason they're basically the only serious company still shipping
| a wooden vehicle chassis.
|
| I'm a farmer, I know what working vehicles are subjected to over
| time, and I know that when plywood gets wet, it swells, warps
| differentially, splits at its layer boundaries, and starts to
| twist. Tractors are for driving over land that is often at least
| damp. This is not a recipe for durability.
| afandian wrote:
| This is a thing for a child. The aim of such projects is to get
| it built before they grow out of it. I think given the duration
| and duty cycle of usage it will be fine.
| stavros wrote:
| The discourse on here would be much better if commenters at
| least glanced at the article.
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| Completely unrelated but https://protohackers.com/ is another one
| of James's projects that I love. :)
| xqb64 wrote:
| He also built a homemade computer from scratch. James is a
| brilliant guy.
| detritus wrote:
| If it's for kids, I'd round off those corners or add some kind of
| semi-flexible skirt around the bottom, because that outward 90deg
| jut on the foot shelf by the front wheel looks potentially...
| painful.
| pluralmonad wrote:
| I've used a length of old vinyl hose, split open lengthwise, to
| cover sharp corners/edges on some of my projects. Really saves
| tarps from tearing along sharp edges.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I did something similar last summer. My Craftsman LT1400 uses the
| standard 500cc Briggs motor and that motor has some tragic design
| flaws that make it grenade itself roughly once a season. I went
| through a couple of these motors rebuilding them (correctly)
| until I gave up.
|
| I ripped the tractor down the the frame and removed most parts.
| Got $40 Ryobi walk behind mower motors (42V which is really 36V),
| some scooter controllers, and pulleys. I used two scooter Li ion
| batteries but I should have just gotten three large lead acid 12V
| batteries for more capacity. Still, I can mow for an hour or so
| and get almost an acre done which includes some hills per charge.
| It took about 8 total days to build and about $800.
|
| The way I set it up is that I have one motor drive the wheels and
| two more motors on the deck directly driving the blades. The belt
| system the ICE motor version had was insanely inefficient. This
| system has like 20% of the power but mowed better and is way more
| reliable. For $150 I could get a solar array and controller to
| charge the batteries and never pay for anything but belt and
| blade replacements for life.
|
| The hardest part of the build was lining up the mounting of the
| drive motor and wiring up all the safety systems (brake sensor,
| seat sensor, etc). The kicker is that this is a way better
| product than what I can buy commercially unless I get into the
| $5k+ territory and is completely user serviceable. No part here
| is more than $100 and they all readily available. The tractor has
| enough torque to push my huge picnic table around while I am
| riding it. I might try seeing if I can plow snow with it next
| winter.
| sejje wrote:
| I would love to see some photos to cement these ideas. I have
| plans to mess around with lawn tractors myself.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I would be happy to share but the tractor is currently buried
| under a bunch of snow. If you remind me in the spring I will
| share!
| fwip wrote:
| Very cool, I love electric conversions. I will confess though,
| that removing the belt drive makes me nervous - they're often
| important to protect either the machine, or people, when the
| blade meets an obstacle.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The Ryobi walk behind mowers are direct drive and everything
| is underneath the deck so there isn't much that can go wrong
| that you wouldn't contend with if you were standing with your
| toes next to it except you are actually riding it. The wheels
| still do have a short belt and a tensioner but not the really
| long belt with the clutch pulley. The only safety thing I
| could have added is the electronic brake on the deck motors
| but for my use I am not super concerned about letting things
| slow down unassisted. As soon as I leave the seat everything
| shuts off and the light blades don't actually have a ton of
| momentum without power.
| rickypp wrote:
| Were it me, I would have started with a pre-2000's Craftsman
| mower as a base. They have a 6 speed transaxle with a
| differential (which solves the steering problem mentioned) and a
| built-in brake, and examples with broken or missing gas engines
| can be had used for $100 or less quite often. They have that boxy
| sheet metal look of old tractors too. It would also be possible
| to adjust the pulley ratios to slow it down or just block off the
| higher speeds until the kids get a bit older.
|
| Granted, I understand that the purpose of a project like this
| isn't just in the end result. Depends what crafts you want to
| practice and what's just necessary work around them. There's
| still quite a bit of fun project left in converting an existing
| mower to electric and refinishing it to look more like a classic
| tractor.
| bluGill wrote:
| You can buy those transaxels (different number of speeds)
| surplus fairly cheap, but you have to look.
|
| Though the goal was a kids toy, and those mowers are too large
| for that use.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| Kids grow. If it were me I'd just remove the mower deck,
| throw an extra muffler in its place (because without the deck
| the engine will be the next loudest thing and I don't wanna
| listen to it). Maybe lock out the top speeds depending upon
| age/yard topology.
|
| Stuff goes straight to permanent memory at that age so by
| giving them a "real" tractor there's a lot of potential to
| learn good lifelong lessons prompt them to ask the kind of
| questions that result in good teaching.
| MisterTea wrote:
| This is one I know of off the top of my head:
| https://surpluscenter.com/power-transmission/transaxles-
| tran...
| sejje wrote:
| Way cheaper to find a broken mower.
|
| They're constantly sold dirt cheap in my area with very
| minor problems, like old gas. People don't know how to fix
| it, so they buy a new one and sell the old.
|
| I bought four working mowers. $500, $250, $220, and $200.
| One was missing a deck, one was running rough. Otherwise
| complete.
|
| They're all craftsman, one vintage from the 80s.
|
| We use one to mow, one to move the trailer, the old one
| mows but it mostly sits, and the last was a gift for my
| wonderful neighbors who are old and were still using a walk
| behind.
| MisterTea wrote:
| That's how I buy snow blowers where the fix is usually
| clean the carb jet or replace it for 20 bucks.
| cassepipe wrote:
| But those are internal combustion engines, so each time your
| kid want to have fun, it annoys everyone.
|
| I'd rather have my kid ingrained with the idea that electricity
| is the future even if it's an amazing achievement to be able to
| tame explosions to move around
| rickypp wrote:
| Right, that's why I mentioned nabbing one without a working
| gas engine and converting it to electric as the focal point
| of the project.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Ha sorry, thanks for the explanation
| _HMCB_ wrote:
| Video please.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Videos take a lot more effort to make. Probably better that the
| guy focused the wor on the tractor than on filming...
| seemaze wrote:
| Oof, those welds are ugly. The author comments on the welding at
| the end of the article, but I'd venture a guess that if using a
| MIG setup the polarity may also be reversed and/or gas shielding
| may be wrong. On my machine the flux core wire vs solid core wire
| with shielding gas require opposite polarities...
|
| source: I'm a terrible amateur welder
| luckydata wrote:
| truly awful craftsmanship, I love it!
| zkmon wrote:
| Garden should be a place where people can touch grass, leaves,
| flowers, fruits, plants, soil, rocks and maybe trees, without
| going out to a park. Ensure that children do not miss out on
| that. I'm not a big fan of anything that makes children to avoid
| their exposure to walking (prams etc), touch with ground or
| outside environment.
| RatchetWerks wrote:
| I'm love content like this. It reminds me of the mid-2000s era of
| the internet.
|
| Is this "best" project I've seen? In terms of tech,quality,etc
| No. Neither are mine. This guy built a really fun project for his
| kids.
|
| I love this. As AI slop gets increased, I hope that content like
| this starts to get filtered up to the world.
|
| I also learned about a web-ring from his website. I think this is
| an artifact from the early Internet. I hope this gets more
| popular for website discovery reasons
|
| https://webring.stavros.io/
| direwolf20 wrote:
| https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/
| bob1029 wrote:
| > You may be thinking that 350 watts doesn't sound very powerful
|
| You might be amazed at how little power you can get away with in
| an actual tractor. 20HP is close to the upper limit of
| practicality unless you are running a large commercial operation.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Sorry to be boring and safety focused but no child should come
| with 20 feet of that it's a death trap.
|
| Literally children die from riding on such things.
|
| Keep your children safe a well and alive, dont let them on
| anything like this or near one being driven by someone else.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Dude reinvented Power Wheels from first principles and you're
| over there claiming a death trap? Questionable premise is
| questionable. Anyway keeping kids perfectly safe is how you
| raise high anxiety incompetents. Learning to assess and manage
| simple risks is a fundamental part of childhood development.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Projects like these make me want to buy a laser welder. They are
| awesome and perfect for hobbyists who want to level up.
| 83 wrote:
| You might want to look up the max thickness and other common
| issues hobbyist level laser welders have before purchasing, or
| at a minimum wait for the laser welders to mature a bit more.
| You'll spend less than half and be far better served with a
| cheap tig welder at this point in time.
| matt-p wrote:
| I love this! I appreciate regen breaking will be hard to add
| without picking a new controller and so on but perhaps you could
| add a DPDT switch wired into the break that adds in a string of 3
| old incandescent 12v break lights.
| Beijinger wrote:
| I want one :-(
|
| Other interesting Story about tractors:
|
| "In the heartland of American agriculture, a quiet revolution is
| underway. Farmers, long frustrated by the high costs and
| restrictive repair policies of leading tractor manufacturers like
| John Deere, are increasingly turning to simpler, more affordable
| alternatives from an unlikely source: Belarus. These rugged, no-
| frills machines from Minsk Tractor Works (MTZ) are gaining
| traction not just for their price tag, but for their deliberate
| avoidance of the complex electronics and subscription models that
| have become the bane of modern farming."
| marcelbundle wrote:
| oh so there are levels to cardboard-assisted design
| angry_octet wrote:
| Without an anti-roll device this could be quite dangerous, even
| for a toy sized machine. A roll bar is a simple and effective
| precaution.
| wmoxam wrote:
| LiamTronix on Youtube has some videos (ex:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iEUp5Z1aNw) on converting a
| popular farm tractor (Massey Ferguson 65) to fulling electric.
|
| Fun stuff!
| fix4fun wrote:
| Really nice project - respect :)
|
| Got two questions: 1. How fast it can ride ? If I good estimate
| (based on max 2750 RPMs for electric motor MY1016 350W 36V, gear
| ratio ~100:1 and height of rear wheel ~0.5m) it should got about
| 0.8 m/sec. So really safe for kids and dad :)
|
| 2. How long does the battery last ?
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(page generated 2026-02-04 23:00 UTC)