My Winter Hobby

[poconojoe]

I ended up with a snow blower collection too. My original Craftsman 9 HP 26" power steering unit from 22 years ago is still kicking. Did some repairs in the past.
My neighbor gave me one that's almost identical.
Someone was throwing out a fairly new smaller Craftsman and I took it. All it needed was that plastic key and it started right up! I felt guilty.

Another neighbor threw out a Toro two cycle. I think he added too much oil. I got it running, It was smoking like crazy. Felt bad and gave it back to him.
I just helped my mother in law buy a beast of a machine. It's a Cub Cadet 3X 30" Pro H. It's a 3 stage, hydrostatic transmission, 14" impeller, 420cc, heated handles, power steering. Can't wait to try it out.

 

[sam am I]

Cadet sounds like a NICE machine geeesh, and heated handles?...........Gotta admit, I use mine :hail:. At first, I thought "whatever" BUT, after about an hour of getting dug out last year, "click", on mine came.........ahhhhh , felt pretty nice actually.

The joy stick electric chute controls are soooooo cool, love it......So spoiled these days eh?

 

[poconojoe]

Yeah Sam, heated handles is a first for me. Can't wait to try it out. I usually warm my gloved hands with the exhaust! Probably not a healthy thing to do!

Reminds me of when I used to ride street bikes. When stopped at a traffic light I would rub my gloved hands on the header pipes.

 

[tpenfield]

I've reduced the 'fleet' this year, going form 5 machines down to 3. I've been looking on CL to see if folks are selling any non-working or in need of TLC type of machines for $50 . . . So, far nothing that is really tempting as a buy-fix-flip.

Once I get the light installed and working on the Toro, I think I'll remain steady state for a while. I got too many other projects going on right now to spend too much time on the snowblowers.

I did find the LTSpice program and downloaded it . . . just can't quite figure it out though . . . I have an oscilloscope, so one I get the LED light, I can see if the circuit that I made is up to the task.

 

[tpenfield]

BTW -

I believe that this is the stator on the engine (Tecumseh 318cc HMSK 80) P/N 611111
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Looks to be an 18 watt vs. the 60 watt I have on the Briggs 305cc.
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As you can see in the photo . . . definitely grounded to the frame of the stator . . . . not sure if that is then grounded to the engine/chassis.

 

[sam am I]

In keeping with your design of the desired full-wave rectification.....

That pan head screw is connecting/grounding one side stator's charge winding to the frame/engine, ya can leave it and try that single point ground we spoke of above to achieve a full-wave rec you desire, thinking it might should work (in particular, the center tapped xfmr arrangement) or as also suggest, float the output(run two grounds, #1, and #2).

OR BETTER YET, now that I see the BEASTIE you have.........Un-do that screw, lift that wire off that metal frame to iso/float the whole stator's charge winding (like most OB's do). Just then grad/solder on a extension wire to that lifted wire, then run both the stator's wires direct to the AC side to the bridge rectifier(see yellow wires below). Ya can then skip using your xfrm and do what Merc does...See the stator's yellow charge wires (floating from engine) and full-wave bridge rectifier wiring below. Just then ground the neg side of the bridge rec to the frame of your blower (see below), run Vout (DC out) of the bridge to your capacitor's, lights/seal lead acid.


Even funner yet?, lets put a $30 amazon marine rec/reg of your blower! 20A rec/reg is a bit of over kill BUT, It'll work!! There is no minimum current requirement on these types of rec/reg's. With a sealed lead acid and a rec/reg, you could have a CB/VHF radio, blinkers, backup beeper, ???............:smow::faint2:



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[sam am I]

So I was thinking (silent whining?) as I was running the snow blower this morning and having to stress out BIG TIME about how tough it is on my thumb (and Brain) to HAVE to adjust the dumb joy stick and update the dang aiming of the chute to throw into the yard (and not at cars/ppl/street etc) as the blower was moving/pivoting about the driveway/sidewalk....I thought WHAT IF!!!

What if I built a auto aiming chute? Use a on-the-fly stored compass reading/heading of my desired/manually set chute throw trajectory by, say, a simple press of a momentary button and a beep conformation? Hmmm

Then, use that stored heading/trajectory as a reference point and adjust the motorized chute in real time to maintain that specific throw direction?

As the blower rotates about an axis (turning around, turn little left, turn little right, whatever), the real time heading will of course deviate from the stored heading (a error value).......Use/sample this error value continually as feed back to, in real-time, re-adjust/update chute direction to maintain my desired trajectory via the chute motor drive circuitry....Simple!!

OMG! :clap2: My life would be so much easier, it would free up even more time for me to do.........NOTHING!!!

So, I have witnesses to this idea, right? Troy-Bilt et-al, note the date and time, I will expect royalties!!

Okay, back to pre-napping....

 

[tpenfield]

Sounds like an ambitious pursuit. I'm happy just to see where I'm going (and blowing) at night

I'm still waiting for the utility light . . . looks like it is on backorder. No rush though, since I already have a machine with lights.

 

[sam am I]

Yes, one of those "first world problems" I know........

Can't wait till you get'err juiced and lit up :high5:, let us know what you decided on and what/how it worked.

 

[tpenfield]

Update,

The LED utility light arrived today. So I hooked it up just to see if it would work. . .

It sure did
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It seems quite bright and barely flickers at idle speed. The volt meter registered 7.75 volts at idle and about 7.9 volts at running RPM. On the oscilloscope, the DC line was pretty stable, not much 'wiggle' to it. So, it looks like the isolation transformer did its thing and the 4700 uf capacitor is keeping the voltage pretty stable.

Next step is to figure out where to mount the light. The handle bar panel has lots of levers to control the gears and the chute, so it does not look like it will fit there. I might find a spot on the engine somewhere to mount. :noidea:

 

[sam am I]

..Dang!!! Your future is looking very bright!!

 

[tpenfield]

..Dang!!! Your future is looking very bright!!

I hope so

I installed the light just now and got everything hooked up. Here are a couple of pics . . .
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I fastened the electronics box to the pulley cover and the light to a metal flange near the starter motor.
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The light is a bit low, so the bucket casts a long shadow. I could probably raise the light up a bit with a right-angle bracket.

It is good for now. No snow in the forecast, so my 2 machines will have to wait. This machine (Toro PowerShift) will be my main machine and the Troy-Bilt will be a back-up.

 

[sam am I]

Could you mount it up on the gear shift deck plate?

 

[tpenfield]

Could you mount it up on the gear shift deck plate?

Not really . . . the levers need to travel all over the place, so no room up there (I tried)

 

[sam am I]

bummer

 

[sam am I]

Ya got me thinking....omg, another project! There's even an blue tooth app, 49 different colors by golly.....I better go measure the current.

This thing from what i gathered last year, has a three phase stator, not sure what she can do but, it runs those heated grips, the lectric chute and the tungsten head lamp, so maybe spread the light bar load over all three phases rec'd/reg'd(maybe) with a few farad 12V super cap to filter

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[tpenfield]

Impressive machine . . . probably would need 3 phases to provide stable power.

 

[sam am I]

Hmmmm, funner making my own but........


https://www.lowes.com/pd/MTD-Genuin...MI94WGpeyq3wIVD1cNCh1ZIAuTEAkYEyABEgIedfD_BwE

 

[sam am I]

I still need to open mine up and draw it but, found this.........



doesn't look like mine but, someone might use/have this one. Found it interesting in that they shut off the heated grips when the chute is energized.....brings a whole new light to "time of use" power management eh?

Also, "DC ALT" (typically a red wire leading out of the alt it appears) I discovered means there is a diode integral to the stator...Hmmmm, who knew? Pg. 80 in the manual below shows one I believe, Geeessh

@tpenfield Grab this while ya can if you need it, some good stuff in it.

 

[tpenfield]

Even though I have a Troy-Bilt, the engine is a Briggs, not an MTD/Powermore. I took the MTD engine off of it and used it to re-power another machine