Unit Cable Hoe

[ihbuilder]

Originally Posted by SmallHaul

It is fun to use the large bucket because it forces you to operate it more efficiently. If you just reach out over the pile and drag the bucket all the way back and lift it out of the dirt the crane really stresses to lift the bucket but, if you smoothly lift the bucket just as it is filling up, the crane lifts it well.



Thanks.



Yep, it seems like we can never load all the dump trucks fast enough at the meets.

Well you will take awhile to load the 1 I'm building now It'll take Steve's drag to load it With the big bucket

the hoe works nice Scott

IHSteve

[SmallHaul]

Well, I pulled this project back out and started working on it again. I am hoping to make the National Pike show and would like to have this finished for it (May 21st). The chain drive works nice and has plenty of power. It is going to be cool to get the chain rotate setup, it should work smoothly.

Here is a video of it working:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft1fAnn2sIA

[steamer]

Scott. The car body works very nice. When the upper is on there and you have cleats you should be able to go anywhere. I'm surprised at the power the servos have.
Rob

[SmallHaul]

Originally Posted by steamer

Scott. The car body works very nice. When the upper is on there and you have cleats you should be able to go anywhere. I'm surprised at the power the servos have.
Rob

Thanks Rob, I am a little surprised my self at how much power it has. I also dragged a 10 pound steel weight with it and it pulled it just fine.

[9W Monighan]

That's a cool little robot in it's self. That won't have any trouble traveling up a pile of dirt. Definitely the "High Walker" version. You'll be able to do pipeline up mountains!

[JensR]

What a neat project!
ServoCity are great, I use their adapters, too.
Haven't had a chance to check their chain - good idea.
I assume this is the plastic chain here:
http://www.servocity.com/html/chain.html

[SmallHaul]

Originally Posted by JensR

What a neat project!
ServoCity are great, I use their adapters, too.
Haven't had a chance to check their chain - good idea.
I assume this is the plastic chain here:
http://www.servocity.com/html/chain.html

Thanks. Yes, that is the chain but, it is not plastic it is steel. The entire drive train is metal except the servo cases.

I couldn't get their servo splined sprockets to work though. They were very helpful trying to help me (GREAT customer support) but, every sprocket they sent me grabbed the chain badly. The only way there sprockets would work smoothly is if the chain only wraps around a small portion of the sprocket. I said to them "simply wrap the chain around the sprocket and you will see that it is STUCK on there" and they just ignore the comment... the standard $3 sprockets I ordered from a discount chain work fine.

[JensR]

Ah, sorry, I was confused! Need to learn to read
Their plastic chain has a spacing of 0.1227, so I thought you meant this.

""""
Turns out the #25 chain I am using has a smaller roller diameter (.120) than they use (.127) which would explain why my chain binds up when you wrap it around more than 100 degrees or so. They are sending me some of there #25 chain to rectify this.
""""

But what you wrote is that it's the diameter of the rollers that is different. Never heard that before.
However, using a chain with smaller roller diameter on a sprocket designed for a larger diameter should work, I would guess. (Never tried it, though.)

Thanks for the heads-up, will have to remember this...

[SmallHaul]

Got a little more done. The chain drive for the rotates is finished. I maybe over engineered it but, I wanted it to be strong so that I could push dirt sideways with the bucket on occasion and not worry about anything breaking.

[SmallHaul]

Short vid of it in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tYFjqwk45g

[TheMachinist]

This may be a silly question but what are the black wire leads going into the track frames? Are the drive batteries between the rails?
It sure works well on rotation and looks to have a good speed on the tracks

[doodlebug]

Hey Scott, run's great! Any luck on the new cable exc. boom?
Later, Neil#2 aka doodlebug.

[SmallHaul]

Originally Posted by TheMachinist

This may be a silly question but what are the black wire leads going into the track frames? Are the drive batteries between the rails?
It sure works well on rotation and looks to have a good speed on the tracks

Thanks, Yes you are correct the black wires are for the batteries. There are 4 AAA 650mah NiMH batteries powering the drive, 2 on each side of the track body.

Originally Posted by doodlebug

Hey Scott, run's great! Any luck on the new cable exc. boom?
Later, Neil#2 aka doodlebug.

Thanks Neil, haven't worked on a new boom yet. It will probably be a while until I get to it. Once the weather turns nice I don't spend much time working in the basement.

[9W Monighan]

Nice work Scott. I see you went to chain drive on the slewing ring. How come you didn't go with a gear like your dragline?

[SmallHaul]

Originally Posted by 9W Monighan

Nice work Scott. I see you went to chain drive on the slewing ring. How come you didn't go with a gear like your dragline?

Thanks Steve. When running the cable hoe you can run the side of the bucket into a truck or dirt pile and put a lot of stress on the rotate mechanism so, I wanted it to be very strong and reliable. The setup on the dragline works great but, it only has to move the boom back and forth and never gets struck or jolted hard.

[kerst]

Nice project!

kerst

[steamer]

Hey Scott. I thought that maybe those wires were for track heaters, so you could work in the snow.
Rob

[SmallHaul]

Originally Posted by kerst

Nice project!

kerst

Thank You!

Originally Posted by steamer

Hey Scott. I thought that maybe those wires were for track heaters, so you could work in the snow.
Rob

HA! Boy that would drain the batteries quick Rob!

[ihbuilder]

Originally Posted by steamer

Hey Scott. I thought that maybe those wires were for track heaters, so you could work in the snow.
Rob

thats a good 1 rob , I like it

looks great Scott , you can bring it up here when your ready to test it I got plenty of obstacles

[SmallHaul]

Originally Posted by ihbuilder

thats a good 1 rob , I like it

looks great Scott , you can bring it up here when your ready to test it I got plenty of obstacles

Thanks Steve, I hope to have it finished soon.