Linear actuator for power SSQA?

[aeblank]

That's awesome. I'm excited to do mine based on your experiences.

 

[Xfaxman]

Popped a fuse the other day. Didn't jiggle the bucket enough & the pins hit just below the holes. Everything worked as intended, fuse blew when it started straining a little. Popped in a new fuse & it was working fine. If I were to do it over I might get a $10 automotive circuit breaker & just run a wire up to the battery rather than tie into an existing circuit. Probably not motivated enough at this point to pull the dash apart & wire in the breaker now though.
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You may not have to rewire, depending on clearance, replace the fuse with a plug in circuit breaker.

 

[Fallon]

You may not have to rewire, depending on clearance, replace the fuse with a plug in circuit breaker.

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I looked at those briefly a day or 2 ago. The micro style breakers are auto-resetting & really tall. I'm not sure if they would clear the cover for the fuse box. I'm also not a fan of auto-resetting in this use case. If I forgot the switch down, or didn't notice it jammed, the breaker would continually reset itself every so often then immediately pop again negating some of the value. It's handy to have my bucket cam on the same circuit as it will turn off at the same time.

 

[Sysop]

I wonder if this will work as well if the tractor and attachment set outside for a few weeks. I find that if mine gets muddy and sets out for a while, it will get a little rusty, and I have to get a hammer to open or close the latches.

It doesn't have a couple grease nipples to keep it lubed up and water out?

 

[aeblank]

It doesn't have a couple grease nipples to keep it lubed up and water out?

Mine does. When I got the tractor, I had to beat one of the handles loose. But now (and with grease), they move easy.
I can't imagine any other manufacturer NOT having grease points.

Aside from that, I love being able to park my stuff inside. Adds years to its (cars, trucks, tractors, log splitters, whatever) life, I'm convinced.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

It doesn't have a couple grease nipples to keep it lubed up and water out?

It does, but sometimes the attachment may stay attached for a few months. And if I don't remove it, I just don't think about greasing it very often. And, my tractors may stay parked for a month or more without ever getting used.

It's my fault for not greasing them as often as I should. I'm just saying that on more than one occasion, I've had to get the hammer out to attach or remove the attachment.

 

[aeblank]

As I mentioned when I posted on my v2 build... The bar was a bit to long & the 15@ rated linear actuator ended up pushing both brackets into the loader arms. The 10@ fuse promptly popped. I was watching for this possibility, so it popped pretty quick, before I could throw the switch.

What size wire did you use? I'm planning on 12ga. Could probably do it with 14ga too, given it's so intermittent and only at ambient temperature.

I do notice you mounted yours where I'm going to mount mine. But you're using 6" of travel and not closing all the way instead of the 8" I'm planning on....

 

[Fallon]

What size wire did you use? I'm planning on 12ga. Could probably do it with 14ga too, given it's so intermittent and only at ambient temperature.

I do notice you mounted yours where I'm going to mount mine. But you're using 6" of travel and not closing all the way instead of the 8" I'm planning on....

I don't remember offhand, but it was a lot thicker than the wire coming out of the actuator itself. I looked up the amp rating & it was over 15@. Much better to go bigger than smaller.

Full throw on my levers where the actuator hooks up is 7.5" if I remember, so not quite enough to go for an 8" actuator. Given how the levers go way over center the pins are fully extended when the actuator is well under 6". Pins get full actuation, but the levers do not. As the pins are the important part it works fine. Different tractors will have different implementations of the SSQA actuators, so it wouldn't surprise me if there are a lot of different measurements or configurations that will work.

 

[aeblank]

I also have the kubota QA. To the best of my measuring abilities, it is 8". Or, within 1/16 of that, anyway. Hard to measure the center of a bolt head that big. I think when I do it, we're doing my dad's kubota too, so I should probably have him measure his just to be sure.

Thanks for the info. Awesome it's working well.

 

[Fallon]

I also have the kubota QA. To the best of my measuring abilities, it is 8". Or, within 1/16 of that, anyway. Hard to measure the center of a bolt head that big. I think when I do it, we're doing my dad's kubota too, so I should probably have him measure his just to be sure.

Thanks for the info. Awesome it's working well.

Not that I'm the best source for measurement advice... Don't measure to the center of the bolt, measure to the side of the bolt. As long as you are measuring from the same edge to the same edge (drivers side of the bolt to drivers side of the other bolt or what not) you have a good hard surface to measure to rather than guesstimating what is the center. Easier with round pins than a hex bolt head, but it should be close. If you are within 1/4" or so & want to go with an 8", you could just oversize the mounting holes a bit so there this some slop to eat up that extra distance at the end or beginning of the stroke.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was some variation between loaders of the same or similar model, much less different model loaders even from the same manufacturer.