Which Side Of The Impeller, Does It Matter?

[Amvcane]

Chaos, I would suggest blocking off part of the drum on the chute side like in the pic I posted. On my blower this piece is welded and I can still can remove the impeller if needed. I have seen some blowers with 4 and 5 blade impellers that have this piece removable. Look at some pics of blowers to get some ideas.
X2 on extending the blade length with some steel.

 

[Reb954]

Reb 954, your calculations are impressive. I was hoping you would provide the increase in "tip speed"; oh well... Only kidding! The points you detailed are great especially the point about possibly needing to grind 3 notches in the lip to remove the impeller at some future date.

Tip speed for a 12" radius is 244,166.4 inches per minute at 540 rpm.
Tip speed for a 12.75" radius is 275,640.97 inches per minute at 540 rpm.
An increase of 31,474.57 inches per minute equals a 12.89% increase in tip speed.
Of course, all numbers are rounded.
Your mileage may vary.

 

[Chaos USMC]

Thank you Amvcane. What year/model is your beast? Some great looking powder for NEPA, what year was that?

I like your idea. Looking at newer machines, I was actually toying with placing/fabricating a piece on each impeller blade; in addition to the "extensions". Mounted on the "upper/discharge" side of the blade, like a wall that also acts like a scoop. Seems many of the newer models have that modification on their impeller blades.

 

[Chaos USMC]

Reb954, now your just showing off...! Very impressive though Thanks for your input thus far, great tidbits to consider as I move forward.

 

[Reb954]

Chaos, I would suggest blocking off part of the drum on the chute side like in the pic I posted. On my blower this piece is welded and I can still can remove the impeller if needed. I have seen some blowers with 4 and 5 blade impellers that have this piece removable. Look at some pics of blowers to get some ideas.
X2 on extending the blade length with some steel.
View attachment 597678

Good idea but in one of the pictures it appears the impeller is 2" to 3" narrower than the housing so adding that plate will probably have minimal effect. If the impeller blades were widened to fill the housing then adding the plate would help a lot more.

 

[Reb954]

Reb954, now your just showing off...! Very impressive though Thanks for your input thus far, great tidbits to consider as I move forward.

Chaos, we are happy to help you spend your money.

 

[Amvcane]

Snow is from March 15, 2017.
The blower is a 1995 Schulte 6200. Bought it about 5 years ago. Still had the original shear pins in the auger and drive shaft...and still does.

Reb, I see what you mean about the depth of the drum vs. the width of blades. Wonder if the fan is a replacement from a shallower drum depth blower.

 

[PILOON]

A 'slip roller' is a tool that has 3 rollers mounted in a triangular fashion with one being adjustable as to the gap.
Generally manually operated via a hand crank. The tighter or closer the 3 rd roller is the tighter the radius of the metal sheet being 'rolled' will be.
Always make nice clean perfect circles.

As to distance attained by blowers the most important is the tip speed of the blower 'fan blades'.
The wider the chute (blade diameter) the higher the velocity hence the greater the distance.
BUT, blade gaps, resistance (rust etc) all will inhibit the desired results.

My blower is a rather poor older design, small diameter drum, 3 bladed and fair impeller gaps.
In my case I have 3 PTO speeds and I have been using my mid PTO (700 ish) speed and it doubles my distance and that without any ill effects.
I did line my chute with HD PVC and that helped greatly especially in the wet snow clogging dept, it's about resistance.
For volume I'd like to modify my fan to a 4 blade configuration. (another project in the making)

 

[Trillium Farm]

The McKee blower I mentioned was an old blower when it was given to me. It was at least 25 to 30 years old and had cleared a mile long gravel drive when since it was new so it had a lot of gravel through it. All that gravel is what wore out the impeller housing. I doubt much had been worn off the impeller itself.

I too had a McKee blower, but never had any problems whatsoever, great machine it was.

 

[The Fred]

Look at the design of that impeller, curved blades most likely make a big difference to accelerate the snow off the tips as they go by the exit.

I have a Meteor with straight blades and it shoots snow less than 30 feet at wide open throttle. I think snow blower design could utilize more R & D.