Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Questions on hydraulic blower on FEL

[robstaples]

Chaostamer ,
I have 2 hydro blowers, but no expert. Looking at your pictures, what does the pump output go into directly? ( the part with a knob) Then by your sketch, the feed has a pressure gauge and then off to the front. I plumbed my pressure limiter to dump into the return to tank. I presume that is a return line filter. I use a suck line. Sketch your circuit. I had your symptoms when I had low flow. Also curious is the listing of your blower that is rated to work at 11-25 gpm. That's say 100 % speed to 227% speed. or 44% to 100% speed. Find your motor model or cu in displacement, then to find the max hp.
My experience ( limited and southern Michigan snow) is it's all about maintaining rpm. But heavy wet snow takes way more hp then fluffy.

 

[oldnslo]

Chaostamer,
Like Rob staples is asking, how is this system plumbed. It looks like the pump feeds into a flow control (needle valve) and then out to I presume the blower. This is from picture # 4 of the pictures you posted. Are there any model codes on this valve?

Also can you find a brand name and model number of the hydraulic motor on the blower? Are there any valves in the lines on the blower by the motor? If yes could you also get models or decent pictures of them?

I would NOT just randomly start changing things until you know what you have and can determine what if anything will make it perform better.

Do you know what the motor RPM of this blower is supposed to be? 540, 1000, etc. ? Reason for asking this is that most gear motors don't like to operate at low RPM's like 540.

 

[grsthegreat]

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Well as you have discovered you have gone down in flames !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UGH!! Now down to business;

The only way and I mean the only way your going to improve
the efficiency of your system is to invest in a vane pump and
replace the gear pump.

Then you have to replace the gear motor with a vane motor on
the snoiw blower attachment

They sell these things and they should not be selling them because they are limited by the

1. pump displacement
2. motor displacement
3. snow pack settling/compaction
4. plugging and snow buildup
5 open auger
6. poor design


They build these bloody things and tell everyone they wil work in every snow condition and they lie through their teeth. I wont hesitate to teel some that even with all their wondeful brochures in their hands because the issue is physics plain and simple.




Since your saddled with this one trick mule:

The only way to improve is to invest in Vane Pump for the Power Take Off and a vane motor for the snow caster.
Short of cutting toothed edges in the cross augers to cut the snow into smaller chunks to break the snow up faster I see no other option short of convereting it to a sensible single stage snowblower.

I would rather see you invest in rear mount with an extended chute-they wont plug and you wont go snow blind from blowing snow.

I am sorry your dealing with this ,and I am sorry your dealer did not help you deal with it the right way.

A rear mounted snow caster with an extended chute is a lot less work.

Not sure what your ranting on about. My hydraulic system works great. No issues or complaints. Throws as well as my old 3 point did. Also, no shear pins to mess with

 

[leonz]

Not ranting,

advice is free, experience in life and business is what costs you.

its simply a case of a saleperson taking advantage of a customer IMO and
I will tell that to any salesperson that tries to sell equipment like this to
a consumer without hesitation or any reservations.

You cannot buy one of these things and expect it to work well as they are not
designed well period.



If it had a single stage cross auger with the proper final drive chain and sprocket
assembly/for speed it would not plug or bog down as long as the pump and
reservoir were of the right size

ALL hydraulic pumps and motors are rated by using 1,200 RPM and 100 PSI as
an operating pressure to create base power and flow curve.

Even adding a V 4 wisconsin
up front to power it with a belt drive would be an improvement.

The best way to improve this snow caster as it stands now would be to have deep notches cut
into the auger flights to break up the snow pack and by doing so the snow is broken into smaller
chunks and then pushed to the impeller where they are cast away quickly.

By doing that the open auger and solid ribbon issues will be gone for ever and

A good sawzall with a two inch blade would do wonders for it by making 1 by 1/2 inch serrations to
break up all the snow no matter how deep or how packed from freezing and thawing.

This would allow him to use the current power pack with little worry.


If it was a single stage unit the snow would be conveyed to the center by
both sides of the high speed SOLID cross auger and quickly ejected.


If you look at the new Yamaha walk behind snow casters they are all heavy and have
notches in the cross augers that break up the snow pack quicly and the impeller throws
the snow very far.


I am just trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

 

[robstaples]

Wow, 1st it's vane pumps and motors and now a Sawzall is the solution. We're trying to help. We don't know yet if his unit is plumbed correctly.

 

[Ehanson]

Yep, plumb in some pressure taps, find out what is going on, then correct. Perhaps you are cracking the relief and dumping pressure.

 

[grsthegreat]

Yeiks. If my snow BLOWER isnt working, then why is it i can blow thru 2 foot piles of snow and toss it 20 feet. It does exactly what i expect it to do.

And i dont have any notches in it . It operates at 540 rpm, 15 GPM at 3,000 psi.uses 3/4" hoses. Has 25 gallon hyd tank.

Does wonderful job....just as quick attach had designed it to do.

I had a rear 3 point unit before, and this unit throws snow the same distance. The old unit clogged up alot and constantly broke shear pins. The hydraulic unit hardly ever cloggs up and doesnt have any shear pins.

 

[robstaples]

Grsthegreat, why no shear pins? Mine has a shear bolt on the auger. What gives if you plow into a big stick? Maybe a OP got discouraged and gave up on tbn. Too bad, I think it's plumbed wrong from the pictures.

 

[grsthegreat]

Grsthegreat, why no shear pins? Mine has a shear bolt on the auger. What gives if you plow into a big stick? Maybe a OP got discouraged and gave up on tbn. Too bad, I think it's plumbed wrong from the pictures.

The system is totally hydraulic, so theres a pressure releaf bypass inplace. If something gets stuck, it goes into bypass and stops blowing. All i do is shut off pump and clear obstruction. When pump is shut off (i also shut off tractor just to be safe) the augers free rotate both directions so clearing obstruction is very easy. After its cleared, i just repower unit and continue.
My old snowblower was pretty messed up with bent augers and impellers after 10 years of use. I now have 5 seasons on this unit, and it still looks like new. I even retouch up paint after each season.
A good 6 foot rear mount pto blower i was looking at prior to buying this one was in the 5-6 grand area. This unit came to nearly twice that, but the benifits of driving forward outweighed the cost.
They make reverse rear pull units, but that wouldnt work for me as i have to clear very high berms of snow that shed off my steel roofed buildings.

 

[leonz]

I am not disagreeing with you at all.

He may have a relief valve issue or a flow issue
with the diverter valve BUT it is most likely an
issue with very cold oil that is not allowing the
snow caster to work properly at speed.

I was simply offering to him suggestions that
would solve a lot of the issues for him.

I did not discuss heating the oil tank and
tractor at first as I assumed he let the tractor
and hydraulic power pack tank to heat up to
the proper temperature before using it.

Heating the tractor and the large oil tank for
an hour with a salamander and a large tarp
covering the tractor and the tank which will
hold the heat in and warm it up faster.

Hydraulic power packs for tractors with small
hydraulic systems are fine and can work well
as you have shown.

The proper adjustment of the hydraulkic system
at the hydraulic oils required oil operating temperature
is a neccessity because cold hydraulic oil is not a friend to
motors, pumps and control valves.

The hotter the oil is before the task begins the more efficient the
hydraulic component is as hot hydraulic oil is a must for smooth
operation of a tool like this.

Heating the oil up for an hour with a salamander is a religion with me.
I always use my space heater with a tarp when heating up my tractor
and I also did this when I had my firewood processor which had a 25 gallon
reservoir of cold hydraulic oil. Tthis is also a must when operating in summer
as cold hydraulic oil is bad for any machine that uses hydraulic oil.

It back to simple the simple physics of heat transfer where hot oil performs
better than cold oil, is easier to pump and allows implements to work better
because the heated hydraulic oil has more useable energy to do work if the
system is heated or allowed to run and pump oil for an hour before use.

The other issue is the main pump that moves the oil to the snow caster.

It has to be able to pump oil and operate at the speeds needed to move
the hot oil to the control valve that is used to operate the snwo caster as
he may just be using a simple diverter valve to power the snow caster.

If the oil is cold the same issue of poor performance occurs where the oil
is more dense and harder to pump and less responsive to the load placed
against the cross auger and the impeller cannot rotate fast enough to
cast the snow very far. His saying the snow is not being thrown very far
tells me the oil is very very cold and not being pumped very well to begin with.



A good space heater/salamander and a heavy tarp may be all he needs to solve this.