I just drug home an old Kewanee 500 40' elevator for making wood piles. It currently has a PTO hook up but I don't have a tractor. I want to convert it to gas motor or hydraulic drive. Looking for tip on gas motor size, pulley sizes rpm and drive motor size. Can these be converted to a belt system?
Have you got a picture of this elevator your talking about Sam? I understand your predicament, I just don't have any ideas. I think you would need to know the PTO requirements in order to make some sort of conversion to small engine or electric motor.
We used to run them off of electric motors with a belt drive. The conversion should be fairly straight-forward with a 5-6 hp gas engine being plenty of power. Pics?
Love the dump...I'm a cummins guy too. Doesn't look like it would be too difficult to convert the conveyor PTO to electric motor or a gas engine. In the field if using an electric motor you may need a genny to power it or the more convenient gas engine with the right horsepower to handle the draw.
Hey Doug, The PTO speed those are rated for is 540 rpm. A small gas motor will run ~ 3000 RPM at full throttle.. Most folks ran the PTO's at less than rated 540 speed, so you'll want about a 6:1 reduction to get you in the speed range you'll want.. I'd lean toward 8:1 cause you don't need a ton of speed out of the elelvator.. A standard 1/2" - 3/4" v - belt is enough to transfer the power it requires...
A lot of the big firewood processors use similar setups. If I were to get into selling firewood thats what I would do. Set up a big area of pallets and let that thing run. Its a great way to get a big pile going. I dont know anything about the conversion to contribute but interested in watching this thread.
Gas engines in the range required are sold with 6:1 gear reducers already attached..... Also, I would consider chain driving the elevator in order to use a go-kart centrifugal clutch or finding a similar item for a belt drive. Would make starting the engine much easier especially if the conveyor is loaded.
That would be ideal, yes... Of course the cost of everything added up would be more than an electric start 13 hp honda clone... But that would be overkill.. How bout an idler pulley to engage...?
Of course none of this sounds like Doug... He's never been one to cheap out on a project... It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with...
I was thinking 6:1 gear ratio also. I like the gear reduction motor because they have the clutch built in. But with gear reduction I don't think a belt will handle the power direct. Will need to use some pulley sizing to for the belt to not slip. With a chain I think I could go direct to one of shafts. But with a belt I could slow the elevator down even more. Or would it be to slow. I think the spacing between the paddles is 14 inches. None of them are broke out YET. I think I will call some Ag junk yards today and see if they have anything already setup for electric or gas motors. It would save me some time fabricating parts and mounts. Has anyone seen an elevator with hydraulic drive? I have a nice 36 hp machine with dual aux hydraulics. I have no idea of sizing of a hydraulic drive motor.
I've read about someone that converted one to a hydraulic motor just don't remember where. This chart gives a rough idea for electric motor size. Since its for a single chain type elevator I'd think a bit more power might be required.
That motor will never even break a sweat running that elevator. Is that a gear reduction unit I see on it?
What makes that an elevator and not a conveyor? My processor has a conveyor, hydraulic driven. Is that video real time and not sped up? If so holy smokes that thing is cooking. It's easily 3-4x the speed of mine... and mine is plenty fast. I don't think the bearings/chain/tray, etc would last long at that speed.
