Hydraulic Motor questions... 101...

[Junkman]

I am going to be adding a hydraulic motor to my snowblower to turn the chute. I was discussing this with a friend tonight and he said that when the chute reaches the end of its travel, that the motor will destroy the gear or some other part because it is too powerful. He suggested putting a restrict in the line to control the pressure which will control the torque. Then he also suggested that I might want to slow the motor RPM with another type of restriction. I need some guidance in this quest for perfection of a hydraulic chute turning motor.. I don't want to go the electric window motor route... thanks..

 

[JerryG]

Junkman,
It looks to me like you would have to install a relief valve at a very, very low pressure to even have a chance of it working right.

 

[MossRoad]

Have you considered a hydraulic cylinder, rather than a motor?

 

[Junkman]

I considered it and discarded it as not a viable alternative. Here is a post showing how another TBN member used on on a BX2750 snowblower. Unfortunately he is no longer active on TBN, so there is no way to get any more information from him. I also know that Kubota did offer a hydraulic rotator on some of the other model snowblowers that also used a similar motor, so I am certain that this can be accomplished. I just want to know about any pit falls before I fall into one. Post #352419.... check out picture...

 

[Junkman]

Here is another thread where it was done successfully. This particular chute has just one tooth that needed to be removed to eliminate the stopping problem. The BX2750 has teeth around approximately 220 degrees of the total 360. Too many missing teeth to cut them all..... Another thread where this was done....

 

[boustany]

My motor has 2 flow resrictors in place, according to the Kubota manual they are 0.047" (if memory serves).

 

[keeney]

A flow restrictor will limit how fast the chute turns.

As a previous poster mentioned, a properly-set relief valve is requried to limit how much force it turns with to avoid eating the gears,

The problem with a cylinder design is that it takes a complex linkage (or wires and pulleys) in order to get the desired 200+ degrees of rotation that you would want on a snowblower chute.

 

[boustany]

I know what a flow restrictor does. I even know what a relief valve does.

I thought the information as to what my Kubota factory installation used might be of some use to Junkman.

Also, unless there is a relief system built into all of the controls on my machine, or, perhaps the motor, there does not appear to be a relief valve on my system.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Junkman I have seen flow restrictors in use with chutes like you are talking about. I have a friend that brought one down here with him a few weeks ago to fix like you want. We welded stop blocks to the chute. We got the idea off of a boom truck i operate. They stop it and give it enough extra resistance to let the relief valve open up.Ithink the restictors we used were .045. My friend was transporting it for a customer from his summer home to his winter house in Wisconsin. Seems he takes all his implements with him to both houses.

 

[MossRoad]

I suppose you could have it rotate infinitely. Then you wouldn't have to worry about reliefs and such(however you could end up shooting snow in your face very easily). You would then only need to be concerned with the speed of the motor so that it doesn't rotate too fast, which could be done as was discussed, by putting in flow restrictors, if necessary.

 

[PineRidge]

Junkman I have a Woods snowblower with a manual chute. However my exploded parts diagram shows how the hydraulic motor can be used to drive it. it also calls for one 3/8 inch swivel flow restrictor 1/32" hole size to slow the hyd. motor down. If you PM me a fax number I will be more than happy to fax these diagrams to you ASAP. Possibly you can use one or more of the ideas on your blower.

 

[PILOON]

My 2 cents,
I obtained an electric wheelchair motor for $50 (Cdn) and attached a 3" sprocket.
The motor is very much like a boston gear 90deg reduction gear motor only in 12 or 24vdc.
I then literally wrapped a matching chain around the chute attaching it to a welded anchor point that had 2 holes drilled to accept the chain ends.
This bracket or tab I located such that I could get my desired left /right limits, ie with chute blowing about 30 deg fwd on left side when the tab was at near travel limit.
I also used a threaded rod (short bolt) to serve as an adjuster.
I ran this setup all last winter with no problems at all.
The wheel chair motor is a worm gear drive rig designed for slow speed and oodles of torque.
I found that with the chute (chain and sprocket) all iced up there was enough power to break it loose easily.
Up here folks also use these drive motors to roll/retract dump truck tarps as well.
Being a DC motor wireing is a simple rocker switch with center off and spring loaded both sides.(DPDT)=$10.00
Total traversing from side to side is about 15-20 seconds and with a rocker switch you can place it about anywhere you wish unlike a hydraulic valve.
Oh, and over the top of the sprocket I made a 4" poly washer to prevent crap from entering the sprocket. Luckily the output shaft had a threaded hole in the end to facilitate this.

 

[jimgerken]

Cool, Piloon. Any chance of a photo? I salvaged an automotive electric window operator motor for my blower. I hope that works OK, but I dont know how much torque it has.

 

[slowrev]

The window motor should work if you can attach the sproket to it ok. You might have to gear it a bit slower with sprockets, but it would just move slower. With a good enough gear ratio or a long enough lever you can move almost anything, just slower /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ben

 

[ducksjunk]

You might consider trying a wiper motor. It has right angle gear reduction and enough limited torque to prevent the stopping problem. Available everywhere for a buck or two.