Snowblower plans?

[jimgerken]

The flighting is a stock part I bought from a supply place in Kansas.

 

[rswyan]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The flighting is a stock part I bought from a supply place in Kansas )</font>

If ya get a chance it would be nice if you post some contact info and/or part numbers for the flighting for those of us considering attempting the same thing. Do these guys have a website ?

 

[jimgerken]

Found the info:

Alfred Egbers
Hooper, NE 68031
Tel: 800 462-2588

(Sorry, I earlier said Kansas, it was Nebraska, obviously).

I found this in a few minutes using the excellent free search engine on the Farm Show News website, where I originally read about it. When I called, I talked to Mrs. Egbers, and she was very helpful, although it took me a while to convince her I wanted full auger flighting, not the webbed-out stuff that she was used to seeing on the typical two stage snowblowers. I guess she'd never seen a 15 diameter single stage blower before.
http://farmshow.com

 

[PILOON]

On my 60" blower I used an electric wheelchair traction motor to drive my shute.
Simply fitted a 3" sprocket to the drive shaft and wrapped matching chain around the base of the snow shute. I anchored the chain by fitting a pin through the chain ends that was placed between 'U' shaped piece of flat stock that I welded to the shute base.
A simple DPDT spring loaded (center off) toggle switch controls the action.
Cost me $50 for the motor and is far simpler than all the hydraulics setup.
I will be on my 3rd deason without any problems.

 

[jimgerken]

Here's a pic from last night. After finishing welding on and cutting the ends square for the last two pcs of flighting, I was having trouble getting the assembly to static balance again. It occured to me that there was probably some welding distortion going on. So I set up what you see in the photo to evaluate it. Initial measurements showed one paddle was 0.149" further from centerline than the one opposite it. The other two were pretty close at 0.079 and 0.085. So I welded on the high side, rewelding existing beads to keep it from looking too messy. Three sessions of welding and letting it cool and contract did the job. It was fun to have the dial indicator on there and after welding watch the needle creep along at about 0.001" per three seconds. Final results: no more than 0.005" difference between paddle sets.
Then, I static balanced it by adding more welding in the proper areas to make the thing just laze along on the knife edges, with no particular heavy side. Impeller is finished!

 

[jimgerken]

Piloon, where can I find one of these wheelchair motors like surplus?

 

[shoppintractors]

Jim,

Here's a thread where 'Von' used a motor from a power window that he picked up at a salvage yard.

Von's electric snow blower chute

Don

 

[jimgerken]

Made some more progress this weekend. Had tried to use the cement truck chute welded together but had too much trouble getting it done since they had tapered the roll on the two pcs, it was about impossible to measure from any straight lines to know where to cut. So, I went out and bought new 12 gauge (0.100" thick) and had it rolled. After rolling, I had it bent in one place, the result is in the attached photo. This turned out really great, one pc of metal forms the entire housing, minus the end caps.

 

[jimgerken]

Here's a pic of the bearing plate, drive end. It has two bends in it so, along with the end cap plate, it forms a cavity for the chain to run inside. This pc is 24 inches tall, 11 gauge (0.120" thick). This and the two end caps were cut on the NC plasma cutter I built two years ago. These are the largest parts the plasma table has cut out so far. They came out just perfect, and fit like a dream. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[jimgerken]

Here is a pic of the housing and the bearing plate as they are starting to be assembled. This bearing plate gets welded in place, and the end cap plate is removable on each end, for assembly of rotor, and for chain service.