Firewood Conveyor Mods.

[brendonv]

I've got a conveyor sitting at Harlans I've got to drag home.

There was a 4.5 HP Honda with a gear reduction unit on it. It needs to many parts to try to resurrect I think.

I've got an almost new Honda 5.5 HP sitting on the shelf.

I need to slow the PTO speed down. The gear reduction on the old engine is about 6:1 reduction.

I'm wondering if I can put a big assed pulley on the 5.5HP to slow down the final PTO speed.

Any suggestions?

I also thought electric motor, but I don't have power back there yet.

 

[Tucker943]

Big pulley works.

 

[Reddog]

Enough pulleys will slow it down but the big pulley needs to be on the shaft. A small pulley on the motor. Or go Hydraulic with a flow control valve.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

You need a small pulley on the engine's shaft. The big pulley has to go to the shaft on the conveyor's driver.
If you put the big pulley on the engine, the conveyor will over-run and send the logs over your truck's cab.

oops ! you get me !

 

[woodworkingboy]

Wonder how hard it would be to put on a variable speed pulley reduction box, one of those where the sheave diameter changes when you crank a wheel. You would need some ability to raise and lower the other pulley.

 

[sotc]

Easy peasy, I want to find a conveyor here too!

 

[brendonv]

I always can't wrap my head around gearing. Gotta go out and explore the mountain bike, see what changes what.

The conveyor probably has a 8" pulley on it now, maybe I can try and just throw a small one on the engine and see what happens

 

[MasterBlaster]

I always can't wrap my head around gearing.

And PLEASE! Don't ever do that!

 

[sotc]

A smaller drive sheave driving a larger driven sheave will make you belt turn slower but easier. Like you being the engine on your bike, you can climb a hill slow but easy in first, a little faster but harder in second. Your drive gear (on the pedal) has stayed the same but the driven gear (in the back) has gotton a little larger

 

[rangerdanger]

That makes a lot of sense Willie. Now I know why the chipper is geared like that, with the smaller pulley on the engine shaft and the larger one connected to the drum.

 

[Al Smith]

Find a transmission from an old lawnmower non transaxle type .

 

[flushcut]

I wish I had a conveyor, all the ones around here are beat to hell hay conveyors that would need a ton of work to switch over to firewood use.

 

[Al Smith]

They have been hard to find for a few years .Even if you do find one sitting in a fence row the farmers won't sell them .

A 20 or 24 footer would be the ideal size .A 40 foot is just to difficult to move around .

I found one last year but it was a narrow flight type made for ear corn and would not have worked well for firewood .

 

[Al Smith]

The conveyor probably has a 8" pulley on it now, maybe I can try and just throw a small one on the engine and see what happens

A 2" pulley on the engine would give you 4 to 1 reduction .2" on the engine and 12" on the conveyer would be 6 to 1 .Then again nobody ever said you have to run the engine wide open ,slow it down .

 

[brendonv]

I was hoping you chimed in, thanks Al.

I stumbled upon this conveyor. I jokingly asked Harlan if he had a spare sitting around, matter of fact he did in his pile of iron.

I did $1500 worth of time for him, and it was mine. Thought it was a good deal. He's happy to free up some real estate too.

 

[Al Smith]

Oh I'm not so sure it's worth 1500 bucks but then again I'm used to rural Ohio prices not the east coast .

Tom passed up a 40 footer last year for 700 .Where he lives there's just not enough room to manuever a 40 footer though those narrow in town streets .

FWIW they used to run those 40 footers with a 1 to 1.5 HP electric motor .You could like get a 250 foot roll of number 12 romex if that would be close enough and run the thing for pennys an hour verses dumping gas in an engine you'd eventually cuss at because it would refuse to start .

Now on the elevator you can find sheet metal pulleys pretty cheap which is what most of them used .

 

[SkwerI]

If the current setup is too fast then you could run two shorter belts instead of one long belt. In the middle you could set up a reduction pulley shaft with a larger input pulley and smaller output pulley. This could enable you to fine tune your speed without resorting to uncommon and expensive oddball sized pulleys.

 

[Burnham]

Orrr...just split and load faster, Bren. Might need to back the conveyor away from the designated landing zone a few dozen feet, too.

 

[brendonv]

Ha, Burn!

It's a purpose built firewood conveyor, not a hay elevator. Built Rite, made in Vermont.

 

[SkwerI]

If it's a purpose built firewood loader then the gearing should already be correct without any major modifications.

 

[Al Smith]

Ha, Burn!

It's a purpose built firewood conveyor, not a hay elevator. Built Rite, made in Vermont.

As Paul Harvey used to say "the rest of the story " .Well no wonder the 1500 bucks it should be a heavy duty Judy then .

 

[brendonv]

Brian.

There was a 4.5 HP Honda with a gear reduction unit on it. It needs to many parts to try to resurrect I think.

I've got an almost new Honda 5.5 HP sitting on the shelf.

I also thought electric motor, but I don't have power back there yet.

 

[Tucker943]

Run your motor you have, throttled down.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Get your motor running.

 

[arborworks1]

Can you remove the gear reduction from the 4.5 hp?