Is there such thing as an electric cylinder to replace a hydraulic one?

[ArlyA]

Air is very, very compressible, so it acts like a spring. Oil does not. (very little anyway)

This is semi-related and out of left field, but how come nobody ever uses compressed air for actuation? It can be "stored energy" with a small tank, unlike hydraulics, thus for intermittent applications (like adjusting a snowblower) you only need a small palm sized compressor to replenish. Just wondering.

 

[3Lfarms]

Exactly. It technically would work, but in practice, you would apply pressure, and as soon as the friction was overcome, it would tend to want to snap all the way to the other stop. You wouldn’t have much control over placement of the chute. It would want to go from stop to stop really fast and you would be hard pressed to get it to stop where you want it to point somewhere in the middle.

 

[CobyRupert]

....but does it have to go really fast? Can't you can control the flow rate by means of the valve or a limiting orifice (reducer) somewhere in the air circuit?

 

[aczlan]

For the chute rotation, I would look at either a motor if you have a worm gear to rotate the chute, or a electric winch if you don't.

For chute deflection, I would use a electric linear actuator.

Aaron Z

 

[aczlan]

....but does it have to go really fast? Can't you can control the flow rate by means of the valve or a limiting orifice (reducer) somewhere in the air circuit?

The problem is that as you change the amount of snow pushing up on the chute, it would change the deflection angle because it would compress the air in the cylinder.

Aaron Z

 

[ArlyA]

Thanks to Aaron Z for some logical input. Let me add, many people here have underestimated the force that blown snow is exerting on all the chute parts. For example, my walk-behind blower has a plastic insert that the chute its mounted on. With that, it turns so easily that without snow being blown and the rotation gear off, I can rotate it will just my pinky. But on the same machine and I'm blowing a real snow volume through it, the chute crank now turns so hard, that I wish its rotation gear was different and lower, so as I could easily spin it around again.

Point is, the rotational force the chute needs while in use, is much, much, more than it sitting in your garage. Same for the flapper on the top of the chute that control its angle. Whatever power the manufacturer added to this 6ft blower in the 1st place, is there for a reason.

Arly, we really get snow here,, A

 

[aczlan]

Our 7' snowblower has a direct drive hydraulic motor to rotate the chute and an electric linear actuator to adjust the chute deflection angle.
When I was setting up the snow blower on the front, I strongly considered switching to a winch for chute rotation but figured that we needed the two hydraulic outlets in the back either way so we added those and used the hydraulic motor that came with it.

Aaron Z