DIY Electric chute rotator

Wyld Bill · Dec 30, 2008

I did the search, read the threads. Stillnot sure which way to go with this.

I have a brand new Pronovost Lynx rear mount blower. The manual chute rotation set up is pretty sweet BUT,..it is REALLY ergonomically unfriendly to try to crank the handle while your already twisted around driving backwards. another thing that happens is the chute rotates SO EASY that it turns on it's own as your driving along snowblowing. Also I'm going to be building some sort of a cab for my tractor so the hand crank won't work anymore.

So here is the current set up>

So,..I can't decide which way to go.

1. Mount a small winch vertically near the chute to rotate it with cables.
Pros- cheap & simple
cons- don't want to mount a winch vertically on the blower & would loose the sweet geared rotator design, & not sure where the cables would go on the chute (not designed for cables)
2. Drive crank shaft with a electric winch.
Pros- cheap & somewhat simple. Keeping geared rotator. If winch motor fails free-spool winch thenuse manual crank.
Cons- would have to make diameter of crank shaft larger some how or it would probably wouldn't turn right. Mounting winch out near the crank shaft may be an issue.
3. Drive crank shaft with a gear reduced drive motor (wheel chair or car window motor)
Pros- cheap or free to buy. Could be directly coupled to the crank shaft.
Cons- May be hard to find the correct motor. Rated for outdoor use?? No back up if motor fails.
4. drive geared chute witha geared down motor (wheelchair motor) with a gear that mates with the gear chute.
Pros-THis would be a SWEET set up!
Cons- hard to find a gear the would mate with the chute ring gear AND fit on the motor gearbox shaft. No manual use back up if this set up fails.
Also couldn't I use some sort of a belt to drive the the rotator crank shaft off from a motor? Like a cogged flat belt around the winch spool & around a cogged gear on the rotator crank shaft with a spring keeping tension on the winch away from the shaft so it didn't slip unless something went wrong.

Bedlam · Dec 30, 2008

Well I can pass along my method. it was a was a car windshield wiper motor set up to simply turn the screw shaft works slick as can be

Diamondpilot · Dec 30, 2008

I second the small 12volt dc motor like one out of a window or wiper assembly. Cheap and simple.

Chris

Ductape · Dec 30, 2008

Are you opposed to hydraulic rotation?

Wyld Bill · Dec 31, 2008

Ductape said:
Are you opposed to hydraulic rotation?

Yeah kind of. I have no rear hyd. outputs right now. Hydr. rotator seems to be overkill to me.

Ductape · Dec 31, 2008

The reason i suggest hydraulic is, though it will cost a bit more up front, it will force you to have some remotes which you will find many uses for down the road. And I'd argue its a better solution long term.

My previous Kubota blower used a window motor (from the factory), and it had plenty of oomph. There are plenty of other solutions on here if you do a little digging. If it were me, i would definitely retain the shaft/sprocket set-up. Its too pretty to just wrap a cable around the chute itself. I might think about a reduction set-up, either a small chain and sprockets..... or even two pulleys and a v belt. Either would be easy to fab up, and though i've never seen anyone use a v belt..... i think it would be cheap, easy, and trouble free.

Bedlam · Dec 31, 2008

Maybe take a peak at these
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/customization/28593-converted-my-snowblower-chute-electric.html
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/69619-electric-chute-rotator-3-pt.html

Or actually this link will hold two pages of ideas.
TractorByNet.com - Search Results

On mine the handle is a separate part from the small corkscrew part, This allowed me to not use thew handle section , that was a plus. Id hate to have to 'chop' the handle rod to attach the motor. However a good clean cut and it could be easily welded back together Oh and one thing I learned was that the auto power windows are don't have to have the case isolated to have reverse. This becomes an issue with a wiper motor as the unit and housing bed to be insulated from grounding
Al tho I use the wiper motor and some rubber roofing to isolate it I haven't had an issue yet.
I know many say go Hydraulic but Im all for the electric cheap to do even if you buy a brand new motor they are inexpensive but there are thousands aval in the junk yards. (I now regret junking cars ad not grabbing them first lol)

garydc · Dec 31, 2008

I think since you are without rear remotes at this time if it was me I would use a winch motor to drive the chute, I've installed them on the tarps of my triaxle dump trucks and triaxle belly dump also and they worked very well. Gary

Spudland_Dave · Dec 31, 2008

Wyld Bill said:
Hydr. rotator seems to be overkill to me.

I can tell you that its NOT overkill....15 years ago my dad and I built & rebuilt 4 different rotation methods before going Hydraulic motor, and I could never look you in the eye and reccomend anything but...

What I'd do if I were in your shoes would be to get a hydraulic motor, and rig it up with the "star gear" Pronovost gave you with the manual rotation..
By adding a needle valve inline you can also tune & tweak the speed of rotation perfectly.

The thing is, all methods work great in the shop or in the summer time when you build them, get em caked up with slush, ice & gritty snow only the best survive...IMO best = Hydraulic Motors...

Spudland_Dave · Dec 31, 2008

Pic of Mine:
All I did was build a motor mount to mount the motor to the Blizzard manual rotation worm gear using a Lovejoy coupling.
I Can tell you it works slicker then heck