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Assembling a homemade electric snow blower at home is not that difficult. You must be able to use a welding machine and have access to a lathe. As a last resort, you can turn parts to order by visiting a metalworking workshop. An electric motor for a snow blower is suitable for any asynchronous motor, rated at 220 volts with a power of approximately 2 kW.
The nuances of designing a homemade electric snow blower
When assembling an electric snow blower with your own hands, many questions will certainly arise regarding the technical side of the machine. Any craftsman tries to figure out what spare parts are best to complete his invention. The most questions arise regarding the electrical part of snow removal equipment:
- The snow blower does not have to be equipped with a separate electric motor, the housing of which has a flange mount or mounting feet. Homemade equipment can be equipped with any motor that comes with a powerful power tool. A grinder, trimmer, electric drill or hammer drill will do.
- If needed make a snow blower for a dacha, where it is supposed to occasionally clear a small area of freshly fallen snow, then the motor power will be enough from 1.6 to 2 kW.Such a machine will throw snow mass at a distance of up to 4 m.
- When using a high-speed motor, you need to come up with a reduction gearbox. It can be made from a set of pulleys or sprockets of different diameters. For example, a grinder motor with a power of 1.6 kW develops up to 6 thousand rpm. They need to be lowered to 3, or better yet 2 thousand rpm. For a homemade snow blower, an electric motor with a power of 2.2 kW, whose shaft rotation speed is 2–2.5 thousand rpm, is optimal. Often, the calculation of motor power is determined by the formula: 1 kW per 150 mm of a working mechanism, for example, a screw.
- Compared to a gasoline engine, an electric motor poses a greater danger to the operator. This is due to electric shock. Snow should not get into the motor, so it must be raised on the snow blower frame higher from the ground. Additionally, you need to try to make a sealed casing.
- The electric snow blower will be connected to the outlet through a long carrying case. It is advisable to find an armored cable with reliable insulation that can withstand temperatures as low as –60OWITH.
The operator himself needs to comply with safety rules, so the electrical part of the snow blower must be taken seriously. When all these nuances are carefully thought out, you can begin to create the machine itself.
Making an auger for an electric snow blower
Almost every snow blower is equipped with an auger mechanism. It doesn't matter whether it's an electric model or a gasoline one. The auger is a rotating drum with knives twisted in a spiral. Moreover, they are completed in two parts. The spiral turns are directed towards the center, where the steel blades are located.As the auger rotates, the blades scrape snow away from the sides of the snow blower body and direct it toward the center. The blades pick up the loose mass and push it through the nozzle, on which there is a sleeve with a guide visor.
To make a snow blower auger, you need to find a shaft. A pipe with a thickness of 20 mm is suitable for this. The working width of the snowplow depends on its length, but there is no need to be zealous. Usually 500–800 mm is enough. In the center of the pipe, two rectangular plates of thick steel are welded, located opposite each other. These will be the shoulder blades.
The auger blades are cut from sheet metal or the side shelves of car tires. A conveyor belt will also work. For a drum with a width of 500 mm, you will need 4 disks with a diameter of 280 mm. A hole is drilled in the center of each workpiece. Its diameter must correspond to the thickness of the shaft. The resulting rings are sawn from the side, after which the edges are stretched in opposite directions.
The finished spiral turns are fixed to the shaft towards the blades, as shown in the drawings. One edge of the knife is fixed to the blade itself, and the other is fixed to the stand, which is also welded to the shaft.
Trunnions are welded to the ends of the shaft, and bearings No. 305 are mounted on them. They must be of a closed type, otherwise jamming will occur from snow and sand.
The bucket for the snow blower is bent with your own hands from sheet steel 2 mm thick. Its width is equal to the length of the auger, plus there is free space for the drive. The inner semicircle of the body is made 20 mm larger than the diameter of the spiral knives. In our example, the size of the semicircle of the bucket is 300 mm. The side walls are cut out of steel or thick plywood.The hubs are attached in the center, and the auger with bearings is installed. Before this, you need to install a belt pulley or a chain drive sprocket on one of the axles.
During operation, all auger snow blowers throw snow far to the side. To do this, a hole is cut out at the top of the bucket opposite the blades - a nozzle. Here a sleeve made from a piece of pipe and a rotating visor are fixed.
Assembling an auger snow blower with an electric motor
So, the auger working part of the snow blower itself is ready, now you need to equip it with an electric motor. First you need to weld the frame of the snow blower. To do this you will need metal corners. During the work, you can use the drawing. A frame size of 480x700 mm for a 500 mm wide auger nozzle will be sufficient. It is important to provide two jumpers for mounting the electric motor.
Ski runners are fixed to the frame from below. They can be cut out of wood or the edges of metal corners can be bent. It is better to make the control handle adjustable. The electric motor and auger attachment are bolted to the jumper. Now all that remains is to make a drive on the snow blower. It can be a chain with sprockets or a belt with pulleys.
It is better to connect the cable to the electric motor short. A connector is provided at the free end for connection to a carrying case. Before starting the motor, the auger must be turned by hand. It should rotate freely without catching the bucket body with the knives. If everything is in order, you can try the snow blower at work.
Electric snow blower from trimmer
You can assemble a good snow blower with your own hands from a trimmer. However, not every electric scythe is suitable for homemade work. Models with a curved rod transmit torque from the motor to the knife through a flexible cable. Such trimmers usually equipped with low-power electric motors. They are not suitable for a snow blower. A good machine will come from an electric scythe with a flat rod, where the torque is transmitted through a gearbox by a rigid shaft.
Having prepared the welding machine, metal blanks and the trimmer itself, we begin to create a snow blower:
- First you need to assemble the body itself. It is made in a round shape. You can bend a steel sheet, but it is better to find a metal barrel. It needs to be cut with a grinder, retreating 150 mm from the bottom. The impeller will rotate inside this housing. To install the mechanism, a hole is drilled in the center of the bottom of the barrel along the thickness of the gearbox shaft. A square window is cut on the side through which snow will be thrown out. The trimmer gearbox itself will also be fixed to the bottom of the barrel, so additional holes are drilled for it.
- The barrel is turned so that the window for throwing snow is at the top. At the front, 1/3 of the open part of the body is welded with a steel sheet.
- The rotor of a snow blower is an impeller of five blades, but usually four or three of them are enough. To make the structure you need a disk. Steel plates measuring 250x100 mm, cut in the shape of blades, are welded onto it.
- Now you need to weld a blade to the lower part of the body at the front. It will cut the layer of snow as the snow blower moves forward. A piece of steel sheet measuring 400x300 mm is suitable for a spatula. On the sides you can bend guide edges 20 mm high.
- A square pipe about 100 mm high is welded to the window cut out on the side of the body. A visor is put on it, which will direct the thrown snow to the side.
After the trimmer gearbox is bolted to the bottom of the barrel, the rotor is connected to the electric scythe instead of the knife. The entire structure is mounted on a frame. For movement, a pair of wheels or skis are provided. The finished snow blower is first checked by turning the impeller by hand. If the blades do not cling anywhere, you can try the design in operation.
The video shows an example of converting a trimmer into a snow blower:
An electric snow blower assembled according to any design will cope with loose, freshly fallen snow. The equipment will work quietly without disturbing the neighbors. An electric snow blower will do without refueling with fuel and oil. However, this design has a significant drawback. The low power of the electric motor does not allow the creation of a self-propelled vehicle. The snow blower will constantly have to be pushed by hand, and it is better to do this in the snow if the frame is placed on wooden skis.
