Having recently bought a 42" Snowblower (190-341-100) off of CL for my GT2544, I decided that now is a good time to start working on electric controls for it while it's not in use. (Not to mention that it's about time to start a new project!
)
My plan is to document and install electric controls for:
- Actuator Assisted Lift
- Actuator Assisted Discharge Chute Angle
- Motor Assisted Discharge Chute Rotation
For the actuator assisted lift, I'm going to go with a design nearly identical to
skerkvli's. Hopefully, the only change that will be needed will be to the bottom mounting plate. My snowblower has height adjustment brackets that will interfere with angle plate on the bottom mount when it's installed. A section of it will need to be cut out to allow for movement and then reinforced (I'm planning to use a small piece of 2" square steel tubing for this.)
I've converted the original lift arm artwork that skerkvli provided to a dwg (CAD) format which I'm hoping I'll be able to provide to a local fabricator to have them flo-jet the two plates for me. This will save a ton of time manually cutting these out (and my thought is to also save some money.) The rest of the cuts can be made with a chop saw before being welded up.
For the actuator, I'm going to use the same 4" electric actuator that came with my Johnny bucket. Since it's going to be on the right side of the tractor as opposed to the left, I'm going to install an additional switch on the right side of the dashboard. The existing two switches already installed for the Johnny bucket will be used for the chute assist (rotation and angle) instead.
For the actuator assisted discharge chute angle adjust, I'm going to go with a design nearly identical to
BUZZ5588's. It's going to use a
2" mini actuator made by Firgelli with 15 lbs. of force. I decided to use a mini actuator since the chute angle adjust since it really doesn't require a lot of force to move the chute and having something small will make it easy to mount and install.
My plan is drill a hole in the chute metal bracket for the top of the mini actuator, then for the bottom mount I'm using the
Firgelli mounting bracket to bolt to the chute. It will only require 2" of movement for full up and down movement with the actuator mounting hole near the chute pivot point.
Next, I'm going to terminate the wiring from the actuator with the quick disconnect supplied by Johnny products. This will allow me to use the same wiring as the Johnny bucket with only the need to change the fuse from 30A to 5A (the mini actuator is only rated at this.)
Finally, for the motor assisted chute rotation, I'm going to use a power window motor. This seems design seems to be how the majority of them are implemented. The closest design that I could find a picture to what I'd like to do was from
rocko.
I've ordered a power window motor already, but I'm not happy with the setup. It's a 9-tooth gear, but it doesn't fit a 12-point 7/8" socket like most people have had success with. Even so, since it's an odd shaped gear size I'm not confident it's going to be perfectly aligned when it rotates. So, I've decided to go with a symmetrical 6-tooth gear and the motor will be on the opposite side (i.e. passenger side vs. driver side.) I'm just waiting for the new motor to come in right now.
As for the wiring, just like the mini actuator for the chute angle, I'm going to be terminating the power window motor with a quick disconnect from Johhny products. This will allow me to make use of my existing wiring for the Johnny bucket.
So far I've only just started the fabrication for this, but I'm planning on fully documenting everything as things progress including information on the parts I'm using and measurements to make it easy for folks who would like to reproduce this.
Even though I'm still waiting for quite a few parts to arrive, I expect everything to be here by next weekend. In the meantime, I've started fabrication on the mounting plate for the motor assisted chute rotation (attached is a picture.) I'm using a piece of 3/16" thick 6061-T651 aluminum plate for the mounting bracket (1/8" steel would work fine as well.) Once the new power window motor arrives and I'm happy with it, I'll going to drill the mounting holes for it.
I looked at using a modified 3/8" to 1/2" socket adapter, but I think I'm going to build my own using 5/8" OD steel tube (.120 wall) welded to 1/2" square steel (similar to how the universal mounts on the rotating arm.) This should fit right into a 6 or 12-point socket that has been shortened then into the power window motor gear. This will keep the standoff's for the motor housing very short and close the aluminum mounting plate. I'll provide an update once the metal arrives and the motor comes in.
