The Snow Joe ION18SB Snow Blower... modified..

steveo

100 kW
Joined
Oct 6, 2007
Messages
1,786
Location
Woodbridge, Ontario
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
 

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Nice hotrodding Steveo!
 
Wheazel said:
Nice project :)
How many Wh would you typically need to clear your driveway? And how big is it?


well i have a two car driveway.. id say around 400wh or so depending on the type of snow etc.

-Steveo
 
Awesome. I just bought the 56v Ego snowblower with 2x5ah packs. On the 4 or 5 inches of wet snow we got at the weekend, it cleared my driveway, my front path and the sidewalk in front of the house. Not much energy left by the end, but it didn't quit. It couldn't get much of the snow that the ploughs compacted across the driveway opening, but even the big 5 horse 2-stage ICEs don't do well at that.
 
i did want the ego.. but its over 1k plus tax here with the 2 5ah batts i believe.. to expensive for me atm...

i know the snow joe probably won't compare power wise.. i'd love to see the motor and controller the ego uses

-Steveo



Foob said:
Awesome. I just bought the 56v Ego snowblower with 2x5ah packs. On the 4 or 5 inches of wet snow we got at the weekend, it cleared my driveway, my front path and the sidewalk in front of the house. Not much energy left by the end, but it didn't quit. It couldn't get much of the snow that the ploughs compacted across the driveway opening, but even the big 5 horse 2-stage ICEs don't do well at that.
 
1k? Ouch! It was 600 here. I'd be interested in the internals myself, but the 3 year warranty is discouraging me from cracking the case open. I had one of their lawnmowers die on me this summer, and they replaced it with a newer model, so it's worth not voiding I think. At 60 amps/2.4kw, I bet you'll have more throwing power than my stock Ego!
 
Foob said:
1k? Ouch! It was 600 here. I'd be interested in the internals myself, but the 3 year warranty is discouraging me from cracking the case open. I had one of their lawnmowers die on me this summer, and they replaced it with a newer model, so it's worth not voiding I think. At 60 amps/2.4kw, I bet you'll have more throwing power than my stock Ego!

it depends if motor can produce the power or if it will saturate instead
 
Hey,,, sorry to bump an old thread. This is the only modified snow joe thread I could find, and I was thinking about doing the same thing. I am currently undecided whether I should just go for a 15A corded model or go for the slightly weaker and more expensive battery model knowing that I have spare fets and 12S batteries to modify it with.

How would you rate your experience with modified snow joe? I am basically considering the $180 15A 22" corded model https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B075NMXLSS/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all
or a refurb model of the IONSB-pro for $270 (similar to your model) which I'd modify with some spare 12S 15Ah lipo batteries to wear in a backpack.

Basically looking for any tips or things you've decided after the last two winters :)



Edit I went with the ion-pro 21" refurbished for $180 on their ebay outlet :D. We will see how it goes.
 
I got one of the latest Snow Joe ION18SB dated 2021 it has completly different BMS I think they started to use bettery validation by ID terminal, also when disassembled in BMS capacitors are 50v so even 12S pack would blow them. If someone has an idea how I can bypass ID and let me use my batteries please let me know.

Thanks.
 
BMS capacitors are 50v

BMS is inside the battery = Battery Management System. Perhaps those 50V caps are inside the controller which is powered by the the snow Joe 10S battery.

I just modified a 80v lawn mower to run on the no ID batteries I run my ebikes and everything else that uses DC power saving the $600 cost of 2 OEM batteries and a charger.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=118967

I found no easy way to fool the battery/controller ID handshake. If the motor is a brushless with hall sensors, subsitute a cheap 36/48V 350w ebike controller and you can power the motor with any battery that supplies 36 to 60V.

Good luck
 
Instead of BMS I was thinking about ESC. It's strange that they complicated so much with battery ID , the controller mosfets can hadle 120A current, changing capacitors can let it run easy on 48v now only problem remains this ID. As you told worstest scenario I'll use generic controller, done this mod on loan mover, will play a little bit and see.
 
Instead of BMS I was thinking about ESC. It's strange that they complicated so much with battery ID , the controller mosfets can hadle 120A current, changing capacitors can let it run easy on 48v now only problem remains this ID. As you told worstest scenario I'll use generic controller, done this mod on loan mover, will play a little bit and see.
Did you ever solve it? I bought the same ION18SB mower without a battery thinking I could use my own, but it won't run with a non-original battery. It's a December 2017 model and I'm trying to figure out what that middle terminal between the + and - is looking for.
 
Can you open the device the battery wires go to to see if there are any markings on the pads of the PCB inside?

Or which components are connected to the pads?

If you have a multimeter with a frequency counter you can connect it to read the middle pin (red meter lead on that pin, black on negative), then power up the mower with the right voltage power supply (or battery) to match the actual original battery voltage (don't exceed it!). If the meter reads any frequency there, it means it is detecting serial commmunications from the mower to the battery, and you'll probably have to replace the built-in controller to have it work with a non-original battery.

If it doesn't read anything there, switch the meter to DC Volts. Disconnect the battery or power supply, then power the mower on. What votlage does it read there, at every step in the process?
 
Thank you for this thread. Any recommendations for a replacement controller for a ..2014ish Snowjoe ion18sb? I just replaced/bought new batteries and it was working great then completely stopped and it will not activate. Light and chute work fine. I messed around testing components with a multimeter and I didn't see anything too weird but I can't figure out what is wrong with it and have very little idea of what I'm doing. It's definitely not the motor, I ran power through it and that worked fine. I've looked at various 36V 500W electric scooter controllers but they seem overly complicated as a replacement for this controller. Just trying not to send this thing to the landfill, appalled at the lack of support by this company. Thank you
 

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