LilGiantsConstrCo

[Lil Giants]

A little teaser of what I've been tinkering with the last couple weeks... it's almost done, maybe trials on the wkend.

[TRUCKMAKER]

Are you going mount that on the excavator and turn it in to a tunnel boring machine?

[JAMMER]

Looks real good so far Joe. How is the tunnel coming along? Weather is changing need to be indoors now. I finally got my cnc mill working and now am working on the cnc working for the lathe almost don with that. Now I fan focus on making some parts for the trucks. Ed

[Lil Giants]

You betcha Kent! Vertical ripping just wasn't going that well, so I set my mind a few weeks ago to get this done!

Are you gonna live long enough Ed to ever start producing parts with cnc?

The shortest movie I made to date!

https://youtu.be/2d5GuNDp7ZM

[TRUCKMAKER]

Nice! Now lets see some dirt flying!

[Cooper]

Awesome!! An underground miner!!! Next you'll have to set up a misting system, keep the dust down!!! I can see you having ripped apart a spray bottle nozzle hooked up to the garden hose!!! Cool idea joe!! Mine and grind!!!

[Supermario]

Super cool ! So does this mean your building the worlds first scale continuous miner? definitely the best man for the task! Can't wait to see this in action.

http://youtu.be/nRCanZ1VVJc

[RCP57]

I'm glad to see you decided to take this on yourself Joe! It looks like it will work awesome in the soil you have there. Better put an extra layer of safety glass on the 850's windshield though.

[Lil Giants]

Hardest part of any job Reg is getting started

Sure looked good running on the bench... didn't it?!

... then into the pit for trials

This clay is sooooo sticky!!! it's ripping in chunks! and wants to walk up the wall.

I took out half the teeth (4 per row) & tried it, but it still wanted to grab too much & walk. Then I cut the remaining teeth in half (from 12mm to 6mm) that helped, but the clay just doesn't want to crumble or peel away... it's just too sticky.

I knew it from the start that that wide of cutting drum on each side would likely be too much cutting surface... I didn't want to hack up the original Blackwell axle incase it was a total bust of an idea... I'll check with RC4WD to see if I can get just the solid steel shafts that come out of the differential, so I can experiment with different widths of cutting drums... definitely needs to be half the width or less.

Motor got really hot too! need more reduction.

I'll have to ponder awhile, come up with a new plan... in the mean time just keep ripping & digging.

[TRUCKMAKER]

Pictures? Video? Something?

[calum_scania]

Is this going to be an attachment for the 850 Joe?

Calum

[Lil Giants]

Leading edge of the teeth is 4mm tall.











Here's a quick vid showing the dismal result of my grinder idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVqz9mOMUM0

Camera doesn't show depth very well... tunnel is about 3ft inward.

[RCP57]

I wonder if it would be better to operate them like a screw? Maybe two sphere shapes spinning opposing each other like a twin screw on a boat. One motor per sphere or a gearbox between the two? At least it would try to crawl up the wall.

[TRUCKMAKER]

Joe- before you give up on that idea have you experimented with RPM. I'm wondering whether doubling your cutting speed would change the out come. I know changing wheel speed in the trucks changes how they handle in some off road scenarios, just due to the electric motor output.

[Bo Wallen]

Can you try double the rpm and change rotation direction ?
Start grinding low and go up. it might work. just an idea.
Love your project .

[9W Monighan]

If you give up on the continuous miner idea, make a drill unit for the hoe then drill and blast the material.
I have been thinking about how to do this when using my dragline but safety around spectators would be a problem if a shot went wild. In your basement there's nobody around to get hurt.

[9W Monighan]

Forgot to mention about the video, Looks like You need more weight and power to be able to grind through that material. Are the spider gears still in the truck rear you're using. Get a worm gear drive so power is to both sides equal and like the other have said; up the RPM

[Dieselchopper]

The way I think after watching your vid of this in action I wonder if much larger drums with a few more rows of teeth might work better. when you look at the continuous miner machines they always have several rows of teeth contacting the surface at the same time.
Just my thoughts.

Shawn

[doodlebug]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsibsm0tTc Low speed high torque!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBqwhedqLXE
Cheers!

[Lil Giants]

The Blackwell axle is a worm drive, 3.75 ratio, no differential.

Definitely needs more torque, probably have to have a good size kv outrunner & big planetary gearhead... I haven't measured the motor rpm currently, double the speed would certainly help. At 4s (15-16v), at the start of vid motor running slower was about 12-13v... speeding it up later in vid to 14-15v makes the motor hot & the Sabertooth timeout inside a minute!

Biggest problem is this soil type is really dense brown clay & it's much too moist making it very sticky... with more teeth, I figured it would just ball up with mud... you see in the pics how it's building up on the tracks? the hoe don't move around much.

With the ripper tooth, one 5amp batt in 40 minutes will rip loose a volume approx. 5ga pail+, it's pretty sweet digging that way... but vertical ripping is kinda rough on the model when it looses contact & causes sudden drops on the boom.

Thanx for vid links Neil, if only it was possible to scale down the same power requirements to operate such tools without a monstrosity behind it! Eliminating the long stick on the JD850 would certainly take out a lot of the wobble.

An idea that came to me last night is to try cutting up a wire brush... how are those bristles held in the wood?

Thanx for the input guys... maybe deeper in the hole the soil will be dryer & will crumble easier.

Here's a vid ripping & digging last night... some of the rocks the size of a hardball or bigger, wouldn't be good for the grinder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FoACSLPdo