Hydraulic winch on a Kuboda..

[mattn]

Howdy

Newbie here.....Ive got an interesting case....

Im an avocado farmer here in southern Ca. It just so happens that Ive got about 80 trees planted on a slope of about 45.° Since I refuse to hire it out to illegals, I end up dealing with it myself.

Anyway, I am trying to come up with a mechanism that will allow me to winch up and down a cart. I already bought the wagon, now I just need to find out the best way to get it up and down this hill!

I need at least 100 feet of line, preferably more. I would also like it to haul this cart (500 lbs at most) up the hill at a decent rate.....maybe something around 20 or 30 feet per minute?

Ive looked all over the place for info on winches...I think I will have to go hydraulic because of thw low duty cycle of a typical electric winch.

The tractor is a Kubota L4300 DT. The owners manual states the hydraulic pump will do 6.5 GPM at about 2500 PSI, but most of the winches that Ive seen are asking for more GPM at less PSI...not sure about that.....

Im also concerned about the ability to slowly roll this cart down the hill, not sure how that would work out.....do winches have a brake?

Thanks for the help

Matt

 

[JerryG]

First off, Welcome to TBN. We have another member that is an avocado farmer also from S. Calif.
Have you thought about a PTO powered winch? That would get rid of most if not all of the problems associated with an electric or a hydraulic winch.

 

[mattn]

Fast relpy!

I have heard about the PTO winches, but I dont know much about them......I assume that they mount as an implement on the rear hitch?

I was hoping for something that wouldnt require any extra storage room.....

Im also looking to do this for less than $800 or so.......

Who is the other avocado farmer!?!

Thanks again

 

[Deerlope]

Done a search for "Milemaker hyd winch" get the company's phone number and talk with them. I have a milemaker 10,500 lb. hyd winch that I use for skidding logs.

 

[1948berg]

The solution depends on wether you are on top or at the bottom of the hill with the tractor.
The simplest is some sort of anchor winch where you use a rope around a turning spool, electric or driven by PTO
http://images.shipstore.com/ss/images/PWR/PWR77099.JPG

 

[JerryG]

Something like this would work well. It wouldn't take up very much room at storage.

I can't remember the name of the member. Maybe he will speak up if he sees this.

 

[ronjhall]

Several TBNer's have Farmi Winches. They are PTO driven. But have the power to pull trees off a hill.

 

[JerryG]

I found the other member. Here is his Bio.

 

[PILOON]

I think they call that a 'capastan' or 'windless'.

Hey I could see that work driven from the PTO, short shaft, 90 deg gear box with the spool facing vertically.
The rig would probably be 3PT mounted and have a drum or other container to hold the rope coils.
While it is kinda 'manual' in nature it would require no effort to operate.

I would guess any decent shop could fab such a unit for the budget suggested.
Naturally a lot depends on weights involved, but the 90 deg box could be selected to provide speed vs power with available ratio options.

Turning a drum is easy lathe work.
For holding power a jamb cleat would do the trick.

 

[Jagmandave]

I think the problem with all these designs is going to be control. Are you planning to ride up and down in the cart as well, or walk beside it, or merely send it down and bring it up again? What's going to be in the cart? Tools? the harvested avocados?

If you're going to ride in it, how are you going to control the rate and distance and so on? I like the idea of using the tractor for this tho.........