I just got mine home and it’s 50’. It is quite the exercise to maneuver it around the yard. I don’t know how much juice it would take to run it full of wood, and I am a bit nervous to find out.
They come in 8 and 10 foot lengths. To stand them up I’d need twice as many crossties. The first couple pens I built were lightweight six footers. Those I stood up. Thought I had a lifetime supply of those pallets but,,,,,,,someone broke into the company I was getting them from and the owner stopped allowing anyone on the property. I found these 8’s and 10’s closer to home.
I doubt you’ll need much horsepower to run it. Should be geared down low. Some of them run on 110 electric motors.
What kind of speed are we shooting for? I see most run around 80 ft/minute. I don’t need it to go that fast unless I am feeding splits from the bobcat.
Just fast enough to keep up with the splitters , the faster it runs the more chain travel and more wear on everything. My favorite power on a 32' elevator is a Honda GS 160 with gear reduction ( 6 to 1 ) .
6:1 total? or 6:1 before the pto? My conveyor has a 2.5:1 from the pto shaft to the main gear, so that’s why I ask.
No that would not be the total reduction. I run a 2or 2 and half inch sheave on the motor and probably 8 to 10 inch sheave on the elevator drive.
So it’s closer to 10 or 15:1? If I use a 6:1 from the motor to the pto gear, it would be 15:1 total. The chain spur is smaller than the drive gear that’s on the same shaft, so technically that would be a reduction too, about 1.5:1, unless we are only discussing rpm.
I have not done any of the math , just from use it is probably only running maybe 50' a minute. Sometime this week I will start it up and time it.
A PTO spins at 540 rpm. With that in mind you’ll have an idea how much lower the gearing needs to be for a gas/electric motor. If you have a tractor hook it up and get an idea how fast it’s moving. It’s good to add a belt in between anyway. Better to spin a belt than snap a chain or conveyor. My conveyor has a small design flaw, very tight tolerances between conveyor belt and steel frame. If a small chunk of wood falls inside the belt it will jam up. Belt will spin, no harm except for downtime shutting it off and clearing the jam. Doesn’t even hurt the drive belt much. Thought it would burn up but it hasn’t. I built a set of Grizzly bars between the splitter and conveyor which helped a lot with that problem.
There is a slip clutch on the pto drive gear with a spring and nut for adjustment. I do like that. I tried turning it by hand and the slip clutch worked. There was frozen dirt and leaves in the conveyor jamming the paddles. Once I get that cleaned out it should be fine.
It’s been around zero here at night, so not much progress on the conveyor. Frozen steel js not my favorite thing to work with. I did pick up a headache rack for the truck. I have to cut it down a bit, but it should work. If it doesn’t work, my brother said he would use it on his trailer.
I will try to remember to look at dads elevator tomorrow, I doubt I can read anything on the motor but can maybe take some pictures & such if that will help you out.
Started my big elevator this afternoon, it took 35 seconds for a split to travel the 30 ' to the top. I could give the Honda more throttle to speed up but I usually run it at about half throttle. I know this is slower than most of the commercial firewood elevators. My other elevators I have reduced the speed with sheaves and they run faster. Did find another elevator like my big one and it came home Monday , may not work on it till spring. Robin seems to think four elevators is enough, and she might be right. It was to hard to resist when the price was a hundred bucks and it came with a good farm duty 3/4 horse motor and one tire held air !
Apparently my brother robbed the motor for an unloading auger on a grain bin. If I remember correctly it had a 4- 5hp electric motor. Here is the pics from both sides, we just removed the pto shaft if using electricity. Near as I could tell with out a tape measure that is a 12”!pulley.
Nice, thanks. I want it to run slow enough that I’m not just wearing it out when splitting into it, but fast enough to handle bobcat buckets of split wood. I can dump the bucket slowly, but I don’t want to be sitting there waiting for the splits to clear.
