In my country, we have a saying: the sun is a deadly lazer. Well, it’s not so much a folk saying as a meme, and not so much in one country as “the internet”. In any case, [LiamTronix] was feeling those cancer rays this harvest season when running his electric tractor, and realized that– since he’s already charging it with ground-mounted solar panels anyway–if he’s going to build a roof for his ride, he might as well make charge the batteries.
Another bonus is safety: the old Massey-Ferguson at the heart of the electric tractor build didn’t come with any rollover protection from the factory back in the 1960s. Since having however many tons of tractor roll onto you was bad enough before it got a big hefty battery pack, we heartily approve of including a roll cage in this build. Speaking of battery packs, he’s taking this chance to upgrade to a larger LiFePo pack from the LiIon pack he installed when we first featured this conversion in 2024.
Atop the new roll cage, and above the new battery, [Liam] installed four second-hand 225 W solar panels. Since that’s under 1kW even if the panels have not degraded, the tractor isn’t going to be getting much charge as it runs. In the northern winter, [Liam] is only able to pull 80 W from the set. That’s not getting much work done, but who wants a tractor without a cab or heater when it’s below freezing? In the summer it’s a much better story, and [Liam] estimates that the roof-mounted panels should provide all of the energy needed to run the tractor for the couple hours a day he expects to use it.
If you’re wondering how practical all this is, yes, it can farm — we covered [Liam] putting the project through its paces in early 2025.
“Another bonus is safety: the old Massey-Ferguson at the heart of the electric tractor build didn’t come with any rollover protection from the factory back in the 1960s.”
Did anything come with rollover protection back in the day?
“Did anything come with rollover protection back in the day?”
Sure: Drive slowly and sensibly, whether car or farm implement.
Sounds more like “bring your own protection” to me.
Yup. But generally an option until the 1990’s. We had a late 1980’s Massey at one of my jobs in the early 2000’s. No ROPS on it. The factory ROPS was too expensive for management to fit at that point, and, “since it came without, why should we spend the money? It isn’t required if the machine came without it.” Technically true, under the regulations at the time, but…
Well, there was an incident, and insurance was dropped, and several years of legal follow-up….
My 1949 tractor doesn’t have ROPS, and it was never an option, but the 1953 models did have the option. I hard-fit a braced drawbar so roll-over cant happen due to traction (the ‘traditional’ backflip roll-over). It can still happen for other reasons, though..
Depends on where you personally define “back in the day”, I guess, but some tractor manufacturers (such as Ford) did offer it as a factory option in the 60’s.
Those old Massey’s weren’t as top-heavy as a lot of modern designs are. The cabs alone on a lot of modern tractors weigh easily a ton, literally. Nowadays, you really need those ballast weights.
Fortunately pumpkins do not move very fast.
Unlike tools and parts, which move very fast, but not too far, just far enough outside the search radius.
♫ Taste the sun! ♫