Front mounted V-Plow and Dual Rear Snowblowers

[JoshJ]

the simplest thing to do would be to get one or two blowers on the front as villengineer said. then just mount a brush either off to the side to hit the lights, or mount brushes in between the blowers and be able to shift the blowers side to side to clean the lights.

Question: what powers the brushes?

 

[Rowski]

You might want to give these guys a try. They make custom snowblowers including self powered ones. They used to make 3pt hitch ones but are more into big. One nice thing about these snow blowers is they keep the ejected snow in a tight discarge pattern. Seems like it keeps the snow blowing around after it is ejected. They actually test these units in sand and gravel pits. The video I got from them back a few years shows them throwing concrete block into a running blower.

Link to Fair Mfg.

Best of luck with your design! Now thats my kinda of project!

 

[pekabu]

Someone on eBay was selling one of these, and it looke by the picture they may have had two. They were a little different though, they had dual chutes. They were asking 1500 for one. Nonone bid on it I think.

 

[Rip]

You might check out www.plowsite.com which has a lot of discussions regarding a wide variety of snow plowing topics.

Another would be Farm Show magazine (they also have all back issues available on one CD) where a lot of "one-off" specialized contraptions (some quite good, others less so) are show cased.

 

[eltufto]

Those blowers look quite impressive. If the airport doesn't already own two blowers that could be used, I'm going to suggest they buy those.

A quick question: I've been drawing and re-drawing designs for a bat-wing style hookup for the blowers, and it occured to me that what I was coming up with, for the most part, looked a lot like the lifting mechanism of a front-end loader. So what I was wondering is, in any of your experiences with tractor/loader companies has it been possible to purchase entire components of a machine? ie. the lifter component. Could save a lot on cost and design effort.

 

[Villengineer]

Most companies, doesn't really matter what equipment they make, offer the various components as replacement parts. The problem is that most also charge a premium for them, I know the company I work for does. If you were making several units you might get a $ break, but if you were only going to buy 2 set-ups you'd most likely pay full $.
You seem to be making this quite the piece of equipment. Unless it's absolutely necessary, I don't think I would try and batwing the blowers. There are all kinds of stability and operational issues to deal with. Additionally it will probably compound the "bouncing" issue you were concerned with before.

 

[eltufto]

Yeah, this definately will add to bouncing and complexity. The thing is though that these blowers are going to add width to the loader, so I would like the ability to lift the blowers up to make life easier for the operator. Otherwise they will find it harder to travel around the airport and make turns while avoiding the lights, signs etc.

My idea at this point is to make most of the 'arm' that holds the blowers solid, (solid as in fixed joints, not solid steel) while giving just the very end where the blower is located the ability to move up and down. The idea being that this will cut down on the 'bouncing' effect. The arm will also angle down towards the blower so it too will not interfere with the lights.

 

[MarkV]

Given that whatever you do it is going to be rather expensive and very custom I would first contact other airport ground managers and see how they handle it. This has to be a problem that is faced by all the airports so there must be other wise and experienced people who have worked out solutions.

MarkV

 

[pekabu]

Saw this on eBay and thought of this discussion. Unimog snowblower

 

[JoeL4330]

Compacting ground comes from too high psi on the ground ...which is same as psi in the tire, when the tire is "pneumatic"...i.e., sidewall flexing (physics: equal and opposite reaction, etc.). "Flotation" tires (e.g., turf tires) have flex sidewalls and operate at low psi. They put down a large contact patch BECAUSE the total contact patch area of all the (4) tires times the psi per tire MUST equal the total weight of the vehicle. Tracks can put down large contact patch and distribute the weight of the vehicle, so they are low psi on the ground. Snow tires on cars and trucks are generally narrow to minimize the frontal area they present to the snow they have to carve through ...like the difference between a canoe and a scow. But even with such snow tires, the total contact area times the psi is weight of car or truck ...it is just that the contact patch is long and narrow (canoe) than short and wide (scow). Other thing to be concerned about in "denting" the earth is bouncing ...and this is self reinforcing on each traverse making little depressions into big ones ...think of how snow-mobile paths deteriorate over time ...and they are tracked vehicles w. low psi. As your tractor seat tells you, answer to bouncing is reduced speed (not much fun on a snow-mo) ...of course, none of this helps you move the snow.