PTO leaf blower

[204saskman]

Well t5o bring back and old thread, i finally found a 540 silage blower. My buddy ended up having one that i never knew about. Cost $0.00(well i shouldnt say free, he asked me to come rototill a new garden plot for him in exchange, which works for me). Ill post some pictures once i get it home here(tomorrow or next day). Its a big unit but im thining it will work.

[204saskman]

Well i got my project mainly done. Ill put some pictures up tonite of the unit. I must say, i tried it out last nite in the shop and i must say it moves alot of air. This will sure make things alot easier to clean up the yard come fall time.

[raf0419]

Hi 204Saskman,

After walking around the 50 oaks, maples and gum trees in my front horse pasture with a backpack blower for more hours than I care to admit, I thought, "hey a PTO leaf blower would be great!" Saw the new price of a PTO leaf blower and knew immediately that wouldn't work for me. That got me thinking I could probably fab one. So here I am on a quick lunch break search today. That brought me to your thread. How did you make out? Did it work as planned? Would love to see pics of what you used from the silage blower and how you closed it off.

Thanks in advance - Raf

[OrangeJbird]

Been wanting to build one too. Haven't found a cheap silo blower yet. Got pics of yours?

[chim]

I put one together in time for "leaf season". It is a squirrel cage blower from a 10 ton A/C unit our guys removed on a project. I wanted to get it painted before shooting pics, and before that happened I turned my interest towards another project. I do have a couple short cell phone videos shot from the seat of my old Ford. You can see the leaves moving but the blower isn't in the picture.

Figuring the optimum speed is the speed it was designed to operate at, I calculated pulley sizes based on the electric motor's speed and the 540 pto. It blows right around 4,000CFM at 540 RPM on the PTO (checked with an instrument at the shop).

I had a bud in the sheet metal shop make a sweeping reducing transition to get to 8"x8" at the outlet. Afer tinkering with different designs for nozzles it worked out the raw 8"x8" end works best. Trying to reduce the nozzles more than that tended to decrease the CFM's.

[chim]

Here's a picture I snapped this afternoon of the blower in a shed. The shaft for the PTO is carried by two pillow blocks on the far side:

[204saskman]

Hey guys, yes i did finish it but the snow came way to early. I found that i need to build a better duct to deliver the flow of air. it is currently set up as a trailer unit still but im going to convert it to a 3 Point this winter some time. I will take some pictures today as i got snowed in and im going to be plowing snow for the day. I think i might intupet a slip clutch or convert it to belt drive unit. I find that the unit does put out alot of air volume, but it needs to be sped up a little bit. Ill post some more pictures once i get started on it. I have some other projects i want to build this winter, like a heated cab with all of the goodies. Ill post later today.