I want to use the motor from an old lawn edger, which has to be plugged into a wall to work, for a small battery powered skateboard for my son being powered by a car battery. Is this possible without havng to buy a hundred dollar power convertor...can I splice the wires and hook them up directly to a car battery?
You need to find a DC current motor. A trimmer motor won't have the power you need and also it wouldn't be advisable to use a car battery for power. It would be too heavy and bulky. Try to figure out how to use a gas trimmer motor.
You need to check the voltage of the motor first. If it has an input voltage of 50v then 12 volts may not be enough. and although it may spin, it would not have the power to spin under load. I would also imagine that the motor would have to be geared in some way. If you were going to go down that road then I would suggest using a starter motor from a car or something similar.
IF it's an AC motor - it won't work on DC (battery voltage).
