Grapple project OPEN SOURCE

[polemidis]

Maybe I'm not P.C. ,I thought the very purpose of this site is for people who own / use farm & construction equipment a resource to share, teach, help, learn....
Maybe some input from others who read this. If someone shares construction plans or cad files here and 1000 people read this post.
Say perhaps 500 of them will purchase a grapple attachment in the next 3 years. (These #'so don't matter)
Out of these 500 people, how many do you think will build their own grapple rather than outright purchase? Saws, grinders, welders, drills, paint sprayers, time, etc
I don't believe the attachment builders, sellers here have anything to worry about.

Hey man! Thats an old post that you dig out From my point of view, I really do not care if any attachment manufacturer has to worry. Since open sourcing these projects is helping humanity to go further, nothing else matters, actually, IF open sourcing does not violate any laws (patent laws included)

Anyway I still have a plan to create a big repository of open source implements and tools, but I have been stuck a bit because I enrolled to college for mechanical engineering, and my free time goes there.

In this specific implement, after 2 years of use(abuse), I believe I have some feedback:
a) AR400 is weldable even from beginners like me if you be careful on heating/cooling. I have zero cracks on the metal.
b) 1/4"=, even AR400, will bent if you use the grapple as a dozer blade! haha! But If you use it to move stuff around, I think its fine. Od course, if you have a tractor bigger than a compact one and you have enough lifting force available, go to 3/8. Its removes the stress factor.
c) The top square tube has to be 1/4" thickness at least. The 1/8" will rip like newspaper when you grab something with the 2" cylinders at 2500psi. Literally like newspaper!. I was not paying attention and I didnt do stress analysis there. Combine this with my zero experience on metal fabricating, resulted in a big fail on the top square tube. I say 1/4" at least, because I doubled the top face of the cylinder between the lid hitches) with a 1/4" flat bar to avoid another breakage.
d) The front round bar that goes between the tines was a simple sch 40. Wrong. It bent at one edge at some point. I would go with both sch 80, and one diameter size up.

Anyway, just a few thoughts after working with the grapple. I use it in the forest as I am thinning to make piles of limbs, and to load the firewood processor.

 

[suncoast]

What drives the I know better than all of you dissertation here. To caution the cost of building your own / one off project is worthy input but why continue to beat a dead horse?
“It’s not worth it to do your own” , “just buy one from a manufacturer”.
If Edison listened to this discourse, we would have an abundance of oil lamps and candles.
Perhaps think that this “one off build” discovers a great improvement to the status quo.
Do you know how penicillin was discovered?
Have any of the negative input people here even met the person undertaking this project? Yet he’s destined for failure, right.
Advice - absolutely, input - definitely, cost consideration advice - bravo.
Verbal beat down destined for a failed task -
childish, selfish, obtuse.
Wish I were a Mensa member like so many here think they are.

 

[BASSIN20]

I agree with texasranger556, I try to build as much of my attachments and things that i can to try and stretch my dollars as much as possible. but there are things you can not physically fabricate yourself, as he says basically hydraulic systems in a nut shell can get down right expensive. what i have discovered is if it has hydraulic attached to it or some other fancy mechanical operation that requires some sort of machine work to fabricate the couple hundred one might save to fabricate their own, most times it just not worth the effort to do it yourself. After all ones time is worth something, my2cents!