potato digger

[muddstopper]

This discussion has me wanting to build my own tater digger. I have watched a lot of videos of different types, some for walkbehind tractors and others for 3pt hitch. I didnt know such a thing even exsisted until this thread was started, so I dont know whether to thank the op for starting this thread, or cussing him for giving another project to work on. I guess I'll decide that after i get the thing built. LOL.

I dont have a walk behind tractor or a 3pt hitch tractor, so I will have to do some more tinkering to make this thing work. What I do have are 2 troybilt, horse model tillers. I use the hiller attachment to hill my tater rows. My thoughts are to built the digger the same width as the tiller tines. Digging depth would be to just at the bottom of the hills. tiller tines are easy to remove from troybilt tillers, 2 bolts and they can be dropped out of the way. I am thinking fabing up something to attach to the tiller shaft to do the shaking of the digger. Aint figured that out just yet. Probably make some sort of skid to prevent the digger from going to deep and adding an axle at the rear to help with transporting the tiller/digger from shed to garden. Anyways, still just running this thing thru my head, aint got all the details thought out just yet. Maybe someone can throw out their thoughts on this new project.

 

[CliffordK]

Probably make some sort of skid to prevent the digger from going to deep and adding an axle at the rear to help with transporting the tiller/digger from shed to garden.

You must plant a lot of taters in your garden!!!!!!!!!

The two wheels on the back should work for depth control. Perhaps you could design a cam and lever system to adjust them from digging depth to transport depth.

 

[muddstopper]

You must plant a lot of taters in your garden!!!!!!!!!

The two wheels on the back should work for depth control. Perhaps you could design a cam and lever system to adjust them from digging depth to transport depth.

I only plant a couple of rows, about 100ft long each. Actually, I have few taters to dig by fall. usually when they start making, we start "graveling" them. by the time we get around to digging them all up, we have already eaten most of them. What I do have is a garden that grows rocks and I am thinking that tater digger would be a good way to dig them up and get rid of them. I have been growing my garden spots each year. I usually pick out a site, plow it up and take a harley rake to work the rocks to one edge, then till it and rake again. Repeating the process until "most" of the rocks are gone. Then I add lots of compost, horse manure, chicken manure, wood chips, whatever I can find, until I get the organic matter levels up to decent levels. It usually takes about 3 seasons to get the dirt to a decent garden soil and most of the rocks removed. I think that tater digger would help me get rid of most of the rocks in just a few passes and save my back a ton of lifting and slinging. I should add, I dont have any top soil, most of my garden spots are on top of about 50ft of fill dirt. More rocks than dirt.

 

[radioman]

Perhaps a rock bucket would be better for your needs if you have a FEL.

 

[muddstopper]

I actually had a rock bucket special built a few years back., when I still owned a tractor. The bucket had 2in spacing between the bars. It worked alright, but not what i expected. Scooping up a bucket of dirt and rocks required a lot of shaking of the fel to seperate the rocks from the dirt. I found this to be pretty hard on lift arms of the loader, not to mention the dirt and dust that would blow up in may face by the wind. To get a good shaking action of the bucket, I also had to keep the tractor rev'ed to get good hydraulic flow and The TN75 really liked to gobble up fuel. I sold the bucket to a buddy of mine and he told me I could borrow it, but I would also have to borrow his tractor to use it. If fact I just talked to him about that very thing a day or two before I saw this thread. The fact now that my garden is already planted, which means I cant really do any rock picking until after harvest, just means I have time to build the tater digger before its needed, and I wont have to borrow my friends equipment.

I have been looking at Utube videos all morning, and think I have a plan now. Time to get out and start this project. See what i have on hand, and what i need to purchase. I'll probably just start another thread once I get the things I need rounded up. One thing I know i dont have is going to be a right angle gear box to make the vibrating sifter. I think a old riding mower transaxle will work for this. It shouldnt need to be extremely strong. Or does it????

 

[CliffordK]

The shaker mechanism will probably take some abuse.

I'm not sure you need a right angle gearbox, but it might not hurt to isolate the shaker from any shafts in your tiller or tractor with belts, chains or a U-Joint.

If you have a longitudinal (PTO), perhaps a couple of chains to transmit the force to the side of the shaker box.

If you have a transverse belt drive, then a shaft.

No right angle gearbox, just belts, chains, or shafts.



It might be easier to make with a single eccentric, but it might cause quite some torque on the system.

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Actually, if you have a bar going across the top, then you should be able to connect an eccentric in the middle... making it much simpler.

It still doesn't make a big difference which direction it is facing.

 

[radioman]

Actually mower trans might work only if you have pulley and belt running off from it so vibration will not be directly on trans.

 

[JoeL4330]

square wheels on the digger would give you the shakes

 

[PhysAssist]

square wheels on the digger would give you the shakes

....And per the Mythbusters on Discovery, square wheels run ok, if built right, but you'd wanna go slow, because the faster you go on 'em, the smoother the ride.


T

 

[CliffordK]

That would be interesting... and quite simple.

Perhaps you could do pentagons. Your frequency might not be high enough though. And, if you went with more sides, octagons, etc, it might not be much rougher than aggressive AG tread.

You could use small square tires on the rear of the tater puller, but you might need to go with some kind of 4x4 arrangement to make sure they would turn.