Re: (ET) Leaves and an E-12

["Konstanty, Walter \(GE Indust, ConsInd\)" <Walter Konstanty ge com>]

I tried a contraption 20 years ago....gas engine with a blower unit.  
Inlet off the mower deck and outlet into a trailer covered with burlap (to 
act as a screen).....thought it was great and had some friends watching my 
maiden trial....made a turn and the hose came out of the mower deck, the 
leaves were blowing out the back of the burlap, the trailer flipped onto 
it's side and the tractor engine backfired and almost started on 
fire.....scrapped that idea and was called Jed Clampet for a long time 
afterwards.....so, things are engineered a little bit better since that 
disaster.

Your idea is not bad but the biggest problem is blowing all that 
air/leaves into a container and keeping only the leaves in it.....that's 
the trick.  Need a trailer that vacuums, mulches or compacts, and bags the 
debris and spits the loaded/tied bag out the back all in one 
process...kinda like a hay bailer......hmmm.

...Walt

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew callahan [mailto:callahanrc hotmail com]
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 9:19 AM
To: Konstanty, Walter (GE Indust, ConsInd); mbanks protopower com;
elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Re: (ET) Leaves and an E-12


One thought I had was to take my electric black and decker blower/vaccum 
($50 at home depot) and a really big custom bag for it on the trailer in 
the 
back.  Put a couple of my 12V deep cycle batteries (that i got free at the 
dump) in parallel in the weight box up front (or on the trailer) to run 
the 
blower/vac through a 2000 watt converter that I have, and suck the leaves 
up 
through a upsides down trough dragging along the front like a vaccum 
cleaner, spaced off the ground a little with sleds.

The blower/vac will mulch the leaves into bits through the impeller, so if 
the bag is big enough, it shouldn't fill too quickly, and it'd compost 
better after you dump it.

Matt