Log Lift cylinder single acting

[unixkid]

I have a double acting cylinder for my log lift. I heard a suggestion by a neighbor to use it as a single acting cylinder by installing a breather in the port for the return stroke. The theory is that the weight of the log lift would lower it without hydraulic force. The reason would be so there would be no chance on getting a foot accidentally caught under the lift with hydraulic pressure behind it. My question is :

Is this possible to work this way ?
How will the log lift stay up with the logs loaded on it ?
How do you get the lift to lower under its own weight but not the weight of itself + logs ?

Thanks,
-unixkid

 

[J_J]

The log lift would be on the other side of the splitter. The log splitter person would be on the opposite side until he had to roll a log on the lift.

Not a big chance of getting foot caught.

When you release the log lift lever, the spool will go to neutral and lock the cyl in place.

The weight of the lift might depress the lift cyl, depending on what it weighs. A spring on the unit might help.

You could plug one if the work ports and put a breather on the rod end port, and use the base port to feed fluid to the cyl and release the fluid, but the relief valve would activate while the lift lowered and pushed the fluid out of the cyl to tank.

I would just use it as a DA cyl .

 

[muddstopper]

I had a electric valve on a dumptrailer. I wired it so that I had pressure to lift the dump, but the electric pump wouldnt come on and only the spool would shift when I wanted to lower the bed. I dont know how you would make this work with an engine driven pump and a manual valve, but dumptrucks do it all the time so you can probably purchase a dump valve to do what you are wanting.