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Hi Darryl, I have two different corded Sunbeam snowthrower and a corded Toro (the larger one, I think 1800 is the model #). The Sunbeams are very limited. The Toro is good to about 10" as you indicate but only on fresh powdery snow. If it gets wet, heavy or compacted, you are back to about 4 inches. The only thing I have capable of handling the heavy wet stuff left at the end of the driveway by the city snow plows is my E-12 with 44" ElecTrak snowthrower. I enjoyed reading your creative ideas. Let us know what you decide on. Regards, Richard "Zack" Zachary Darryl McMahon wrote: Hi Neil, the radiator fan motors are typically rated at 200-300 watts, not especially torquy, so I expect they won't have the oomph I'm looking for. I was considering a surplus furnace fan motor 2/3 hp as a corded version, but again, I doubt it has the power to get the job done. Something like a 240-volt AC air compressor motor would probably have the torque and power to do the job, though the cording would probably become cumbersome. My mom does have a welder plug in the garage (from my days there), so access would not be a problem. I have seen a Toro unit advertised as being able to handle up to 10 inches of snow. That would be a big advance over the Sunbeams I had some experience with in the past, where 3 inches was pretty much the limit to effective operation. Having weaned my mother off gas mowers, she has become a real advocate of corded electric mowers, and that has saved me a lot of maintenance trips. I'd like to accomplish the same with an electric snowblower. It doesn't have to handle blizzards (the neighbours with their 10 hp gas blower can deal with that a couple of times a season), but does have to deal with the mound of snow left at the end of the driveway by the roadplow. Corded has the attraction that I would not have to rely on her remembering to charge batteries. Hmmmm, maybe an E10 with a 36-inch blower...ah well, it's nice to dream. Or a JD E90 with some kind of custom front-end - like two of those Toro corded units side- by-side with a 36-volt DC motor driving them. Sorry, gotta get back to reality. Darryl McMahon Date sent: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 13:15:17 -0500 From: wombat <wombat dssinternet net> To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu Subject: (ET) corded blowersAfternoon, Daryl: I've used a couple of the "powershovels", they are small (16") single stage jobbers, work well for light snow - also used to use them to dig down to the mailbox when we got snow (not like now) as it was easy to climb to the top of the pile and cut downword. Just a thoughtr, how about something like the motors cars use for radiator fans ? Too small, maybe ? wombat _______________________________________________ Elec-trak mailing list Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo/elec-trak_______________________________________________ Elec-trak mailing list Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo/elec-trak |