Brush Hog Gearbox

[N80]

I thought the purpose of the mower gear box and capstan was to save money. I don't know how much a hydraulic motor is, maybe not too much, but if he does not have rear remotes then things start to add up.

Anyway, I asked my B-I-L last night about pto winches. He said the ones he has used have four settings: stop, powering cable on, free spooling and powering cable off. He dose not think his older ones had a clutch mechanism, basically just stop, forward, reverse and then physically disconnected fo neutral/free spooling. He had no idea what rpm input range was used for these winches. He did say that they were pretty simple units and the last one he bought (years ago) cost like a $100.

 

[John_Mc]

Everytime one of these winch ideas comes up, I pretty much go back to the same thing. Take a pto winch, as was suggested and add a hydraulic motor to power it. You have three main sources of power from your tractor. Instead of using the pto, use the hydraulics. The advantage of it really will provide you with a lot better service than using the pto. The major drawback of the pto is going to be inability to control the speed, and failure to be able to reverse it. A capstan will allow a certain amount of play in speed control, but not really. Kind of like having a car with the motor running wide open, and all the speed control you have is turning the key on and off. You can get good at using a capstan, but it is still a full speed when it is pulling and no speed when it is slack. There is no in between with it. A hydraulic motor on a winch will give you the speed control, and also reverse that you will need.

That would work well if I was just using it on my tractor. I already have the rear remotes on it. However, it would minimize the ability use it on other tractors, and I need it to be portable. Buying a PTO pump, a hydraulic motor and a winch starts to get the cost up there. Unlike on a winch, lack of reverse is not much of an issue on a capstan... just let the rope loose.

Lack of speed control could be an issue, though maybe it's less so, since I don't plan to operate it from the seat... in which case, I don't have speed control with the hydraulics either (unless I get into a much more complicated set-up with some sort of remote control for the speed). The 200 FPM I am looking to achieve through gearing down the PTO speed is just a little over 2 MPH... less than walking speed. This is also the max speed of a Farmi Winch. I could further reduce that by slowing engine RPMs.

This year, our method was to just cut the logs small enough to drag by hand out to the nearest trail (a pair of handheld tongs helped tremendously in this). Our current cheap plan for next year is a rope or cable with a snatch block attached to a stump or tree as an anchor. Power provided by tying off to the draw bar, and driving the tractor down the trail. This makes it a two-man operation, since someone needs to keep an eye on the log being skidded. One of the guys with some welding skills, and a well stocked scrap pile is looking at making a skidding arch which can be pulled by the cable/rope.

John Mc