4 acres of leaves to vacum.

[dsergison]

an agrifab leaf sucker cart is $999! Holy mulch batman.

I couldn't stomach that sort of green just to pick up my leaves, so I used $6,000 worth of torch set, vertical mill, and T/A 185 to put together this from scrap stainless and plate saturday. It's half finished.

talk about return on investment.

[dsergison]

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ok, I'm done posting now.

[dseman]

Ah, another gingery centrifugal fan. I think the sheetmetal is a bit thin for moving leaves and stuff. It would be o.k. for air though. Also, the distance from the blade to the housing may be a little close for moving debris.

just my 2 cents,
-dseman

[Green_in_MI]

Looks great so far, have you considered building a leaf blower? What are you using for power?

[dsergison]

er um.... are you serious? The fans 1/4" steel.

[dseman]

Originally posted by dsergison
er um.... are you serious? The fans 1/4" steel.

er um, yes I am serious. I said the sheetmetal--as in the housing that follows the circumference of the blade seems a bit thin--not the fan blade itself. That is overkill at 1/4".

[echo8287]

Leaf vacuum

Are you going to power it with a lawnmower motor? How many HP? Where are the leaves going to go ? Bagger attachment? Or is it a mulcher?

[Fla Jim]

I have a concern.
What is the diameter of the fan, how fast will it be rotating? Do you have any thoughts about balancing the fan?. A large diameter wheel with blades out of balance or misaligned can cause some serious problems, and can be very dangerious if rotating at high RPM's.

Jim

[Suburban_Guy]

I don't know much about the engineering of the fan, but that sheetmetal nibbler in the first photo has some serious character! I love well used tools (not abused) .

H.B.

[Franz]

Why did you go with a reverse incline on the blower blades? Usually media blowers use straight blades.
Since you used stainless, thickness of the housing seems fine to me, Billygoat only uses 14 ga mild steel on their housing.

[morpheus]

I have about 1.5 acres of leaves to vaccum myself, I was just today musing over building a hopper to pull behind my mower and catch the leaves. Did you copy the design of this from something or have some plans ?

anybody else have any plans for something like this ? though my current mower doesn't have a PTO in the rear.

- jack

[dseman]

Jack,
Do a google search for David Gingery's "How to design and build Centrifugal Fans for the home shop". Scale up metal thickness appropriately for moving something other than air.

-dseman