Homemade PTO (?)

[frederic]

Greetings,

I don't have a tractor per se, but instead a boring, 5HP simpicity riding mower. It's served me well considering the size of my property, however the mower deck has broken for the last time, and I've decided not to repair it anymore. Instead, I've started to fabricate out of a running push mower I found in the neighbor's trash, a "tow" mower which I'll just drag with my riding mower and mow the lawn that way. As long as I can sit while mowing I'm happy.

However, once I remove the mower deck, there is a nice long belt I can use to "power" other things. I was thinking this would be useful to drive a hydraulic pump of some kind, and with a couple of seal-on-disconnect type quick fittings, I could provide hydraulic power to something I'd build and attach to the riding mower.

While the power of the riding mower limits what I can run off a system like this, I was thinking of making a small backhoe for all the digging projects I have coming up. I can see tillers, vacuums, etc in the future. Fabricating these things is time consuming but not to difficult, but I'm curious what you guys think about how to get power from this belt (driven by a vertical engine), to the accessory out back?

Very strange question, and you're welcome to laugh and poke. What do you think?

I was thinking something cheesy like a power steering pump turned sideways, for example.

 

[beenthere]

Wish you luck, as it is great to 'invent' things to do with what we have. Is this a summer project? Do you have a 'facility' with a workshop, such as milling tools, welder, etc. ?

Tell us a bit about yourself (profile filled out would help) and what your 'day job' is, as it will help formulate answers to your questions. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Mith]

I have thought about this alot.
Is your mower a rear engine, mid or a front?
Either way, hydraulic pump could be mounted out to one side with belt from mower pulley out. A general PTO pulley could be welded to the top of the transaxle pulley if a garden tractor (some higher end tractors have this anyway). Big alterantor could be added the same way as the hydralic pump.
Having push mowers ganged together and towed is not uncommon and really a good idea.
If you were feeling adventurous (foolish) you could make an extention to the cranksaft on top of the engine and add stuff to there. Of course a catastophic faliure is likely unless it is perfectly balanced.
If you could you could post pics of your mower from various different angles to see where you could attach stuff. Most of my thoughts have been centred around a garden tractor.
BTW, if youre feeling really outragous take a look at this thread , looks like a cool project though I doubt a backhoe on 5hp would do much.
Anyway whatever you do, have fun!

 

[frederic]

Beenthere -

I didn't fill out my profile? Shucks, I'm usually very good at doing such tasks. I'll take care of that.

My career, irrelevent to most of my hobbies and interests, draws a direct parallel to Dilbert cartoons. I just hope my staff doesn't refer to me as the pointy hair boss behind my back. Especially since I have very little hair. ;-)

As far as hobbies and interest goes, I'm all over the place. I built a recording studio into my garage loft, I'm into anything automotive, and for whatever reason, I like making stuff.

I'm particularly into building forced induction, fuel injected, "sleepers". Vehicles that look like regular vehicles until I hit the throttle. I've made some weird things too.

My website is here, if you wish to see some of my projects:

http://www.midimonkey.com/~frederic/index.html

My "shop" is a real mess, but it's essentially one garage bay in a two-car garage. My wife absolutely defends her garage bay from encroachment, and that's fair since anything I touch ends up having tools, projects, and junk in it very quickly. The first picture shows my shelves and shelves of car parts for a variety of projects old, current and future, and the right picture shows the "tool side" which are my workbenches with some tools scattered about. Under the workbench are my welders and plasma cutter, and the empty space right by the garage door there's now a floor standing delta drill press.

I've made very simple lawn care equipment (roller/tamper in this picture:

I built an engine run stand... and yes I've run engines on it a few times now, including a Chevy big block and now a ford big block. So it's nice and sturdy, and very stable. Just takes up too much room.

I've made weird things. Here is a Ford lower intake, a ford upper intake, a homemade "Y" plenum, with two GM throttle bodies attached, one on each side:

All my friends are still talking about "Superbumper". This is the result of a pile of extra 1/4" plate, a truck with a bent up front bumper, a month off from work, and a wife visiting her father for the same month in another state. ;-)

I'm not a professional fabricator nor will I ever pretend to be. In fact, my welds while strong, look awful. I'm simply a guy who likes to make stuff... regardless of how it comes out, I always feel I learn something. As long as I can keep my eyes in my head, my fingers and toes attached, I'm a happy guy.

 

[frederic]

Mith -

My mower is a rear engine mower, and the briggs motor (I know, I know) is attached to the transmission via a belt and pulley, that is parallel to the ground. There is a seconmd pulley on the engine output shaft that drives the mower deck belt, with a lever operate tensioner which essentially turns the mower blades on and off by allowing slack in the belt for "off". Here is what it looks like, I got carried away with painting things the other day:

And that other thead is exactly what I wanted to do... and I'm of course willing to consider an engine upgrade. I can always put this engine on something else...

Originally I was going to build the "tow" mower to do offset mowing, so I could use the riding mower deck in conjunction with the trailer, achieving a wider cut than just the riding mower alone - making the mowing job that much quicker. However since the deck is falling apart and not worth anymore effort repairning, I was just going to tow the mower trailer once it's done.

Let me go through that tread... thank you much for posting it!

I feel at home here on this forum, why is that? ;-)

Oh, I'm happy to post more pictures of my riding mower... just at 11pm I didn't have any but that one handy....

 

[beenthere]

Wow
That looks like fun, to me.

Wish you lived next door. I'd be around.

 

[Mith]

Well I've gotta say you do some impressive stuff. Gotta love that PC in yer truck. You could play games in traffic jams, just need a bit of internet action on it /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif. Well I sure hope you stick around here, I feel some intersting projects on their way. Cant wait to see a BH mounted on a RER.
I hope you post pictures as any projects progress, if you do build a BH post lots of pictures as I plan to make one soon.
/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gifThanks

 

[frederic]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Wow That looks like fun, to me.
Wish you lived next door. I'd be around.
)</font>

The house next door is for sale ;-)

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Well I've gotta say you do some impressive stuff. Gotta love that PC in yer truck. You could play games in traffic jams, just need a bit of internet action on it /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif. Well I sure hope you stick around here, I feel some intersting projects on their way. Cant wait to see a BH mounted on a RER.
I hope you post pictures as any projects progress, if you do build a BH post lots of pictures as I plan to make one soon.
/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gifThanks )</font>

Thank you. The PC will be providing several functions, the most typical and less exciting is media playback (mp3s, dvd images, et al) but the reason why I'm putting this effort into it is I will be doing a lot of EFI tuning on this vehicle across many months, once the new engine goes in (500cid, twin-turbo stroker). Having a SVGA touchscreen built into the dash allows me to tweek and experiment while at stoplights, without dealing with the hassle of a laptop falling off the bench seat. Also, since the touchscreen is large, 13" diagonal, there is little room for anything else like AC controls, radio, etc, so the PC can do all of these things as I have time to make it so. Not being a programmer, it takes a while unfortunately. But, her e is what the idle screen looks like, this is a direct printscreen:

Internet access is already working, via two methods. The "default" or "primary" internet access is standard, wireless ethernet, which is available all over the place. When that is not available, the PC is configured to automatically "jump over" to the Sprint PCS network, using a card specifically designed to pass data over the Sprint PCS network, as if it were a cell phone. The bandwidth is not anywhere near as fast as wireless ethernet, but it's fast enough to download maps for driving on the fly, using a free program called "GPS Drive", which runs under Linux. I have it in, I had it working, and a trip to boston and back (to NJ) resulted in automatic downloading of maps the entire way. Very slick piece of a software, and I can't believe it's completely free.

As far as building a backhoe, that in itself isn't very difficult - one just has to copy an existing "real" backhoe, and make all the dimensions smaller. Actually, I have most of the materials for this project stacked in the closet... I just need to figure out how to power the thing. It's likely that I'll have to find yet another gas-powered device in the trash, with a horizontal engine, so I can tap it easier using automotive parts. Things like an AC compressor, or a powersteering pump, etc.

BTW, the older AC compressors on mid to late 70's cars typically were self-oiling units, meaning that the oil and the freon (or freon substitute) never mix. This in turn is a very cheap way of providing compressed air off the engine of your vehicle, or your tractor, or in my case, a mower. Guys who off-road a lot often install such a unit into their trucks so they can air-up their tires to street pressure once they are done crawling rocks with 5-8 psi in the tires. For offroading, you want the tires to wrap around the rocks rather than be stiff and get punctured. Anyway, that's a sidetrack. I might end up using pneumatics, unless I figure out a cheap way of fangling up hydraulics.

Oh, what fun!

 

[Mith]

OOOH OOOH, Pick me!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

You know about A/C? How does A/C work, can I make some homemade? How?
Thanks if you can, its had me stumped for a little while. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Very, very, nice system btw.

 

[frederic]

Thanks for the compliment.

Air conditioners use chemicals that easily convert from a gas to a liquid and back again. This chemical is used to transfer heat from the air inside of a home to the outside air.

The machine has three main parts. They are a compressor, a condenser and an evaporator. The compressor and condenser are usually located on the outside air portion of the air conditioner. The evaporator is located on the inside the house, sometimes as part of a furnace. That's the part that heats your house.

The working fluid arrives at the compressor as a cool, low-pressure gas. The compressor squeezes the fluid. This packs the molecule of the fluid closer together. The closer the molecules are together, the high its energy and its temperature.

The working fluid leaves the compressor as a hot, high pressure gas and flows into the condenser. If you looked at the air conditioner part outside a house, look for the part that has metal fins all around. The fins act just like a radiator in a car and helps the heat go away, or dissipate, more quickly.

When the working fluid leaves the condenser, its temperature is much cooler and it has changed from a gas to a liquid under high pressure. The liquid goes into the evaporator through a very tiny, narrow hole. On the other side, the liquid's pressure drops. When it does it begins to evaporate into a gas.

As the liquid changes to gas and evaporates, it extracts heat from the air around it. The heat in the air is needed to separate the molecules of the fluid from a liquid to a gas.

The evaporator also has metal fins to help in exchange the thermal energy with the surrounding air.

By the time the working fluid leaves the evaporator, it is a cool, low pressure gas. It then returns to the compressor to begin its trip all over again.

Connected to the evaporator is a fan that circulates the air inside the house to blow across the evaporator fins. Hot air is lighter than cold air, so the hot air in the room rises to the top of a room.

There is a vent there where air is sucked into the air conditioner and goes down ducts. The hot air is used to cool the gas in the evaporator. As the heat is removed from the air, the air is cooled. It is then blown into the house through other ducts usually at the floor level.

This continues over and over and over until the room reaches the temperature you want the room cooled to. The thermostat senses that the temperature has reached the right setting and turns off the air conditioner. As the room warms up, the thermostat turns the air conditioner back on until the room reaches the temperature.

Fabricating one yourself is certainly doable, but it's by far easier to acquire an AC unit that someone chucked to the curb for the trash men, and leech the parts from it and rebuild what is necessary, or for automotive applications leach parts from the junkyard. Making things is cool, but there is a point where recycling available parts is most effective!

BTW, your freezer/frige is an air conditioning unit. Instead of blowing cold air into the room, it puts it in an insulated box that your food sits in /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif