Building a hydraulic powerpack.

[BargeMonkey]

 I can do all the math I want on GPM / Flow / PSI but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing with it, want to make it large enough but still portable. That Bells 6000 of mine is an animal is you unhook the conveyor, night and day, I'm looking to build a powerpack that will run the conveyor, a tumbler, and possibly a 2nd conveyor to use to radial stack firewood so im looking at 3 sets of taps off 1 power unit. Am I better off with a high flow gear pump ? 22-28gal pump hooked to the larger Honda gas engine, just knocking ideas around and asking maybe what other guys have built. 

[mike_belben]

A bigwheel welder cart with some fatbike or ATV tires makes a good rough terrain base.  Set it up in a way that you can tip it down and hitch to a quad or mower or truck for jockeying around.  And put an eyebolt uptop for lifting it into the truck with crane or loader.  

Ideally you want the pump inlet flooded at all times rather than lifting fluid at startup..  and no suction screen or filter, they cause more wear than they prevent.  Keep your filtration on the outlet side.  If you use a horizontal shaft motor you can baffle it up so that the engine fan also pulls through the hydraulic cooler.  Just be certain air cannot bypass the core at all.  

If youre only running low speed on/off motors then you can get away with cylinder spools.  Things that over run from mass need a motor spool to prevent them from slamming at shutdown.  If you find a 3spool bank valve with internal relief itll be a lot more straight forward than running 3 indendant valves in series or off power beyond plugs.  It might be hard to find a cheap 3 spool with detents how you want.  You can always bungee cord or coat hanger latch.

If youre building the reservoir, make it tall and baffle it with a few holes to transfer over but keep them a few inches above the floor to create a craap traap.  The return fluid enters one side and the pump draws from the other, a few inches up above where sediment will be also.  Be sure to weld in some extra retunlrn bungs and a ballvalve drain, plus filtered breather.  Thats primary source of dirt. 

[mike_belben]

Oh and make sure its got room for a group 31 stud top bigrig battery, plus acces to the starter and carb without tearing it all apart.  Might wanna just build it on an old chopped down boat trailer or something.  

[BargeMonkey]

 I'm just knocking ideas around, trying to build something with off the shelf components that I dont have a small fortune into, didnt know if someone else had been down this road before. 

[mike_belben]

What about running it off the skid steer aux ports for now to see if its worth the effort ?

[GRANITEstateMP]

Barge,

You might want to go a bit bigger than the Honda twin for a motor.  I've got a little stand alone unit that runs my processor, it's got a 24hp Honda and gets the job done but it lacks snot to help speed up production.  Mine is a bit different, Honda motor, to a PTO drive.  PTO runs into the processor, turns a pump but also runs a few belts.  I'll try and post a picture.  Neat rig, they did make some with PTO and Hydro's, just not my model.  If it had another 5 or 6 hp I'd be super happy with it.

 This is the unit.  Sits on a stand, I move it around with a set of forks.

 This is where it spends most of it's time.  It's designed to fit into the back of a pickup.  I guess they use them quite a bit to run bale wrappers, and unload wagons, so your not tying up a tractor.

[woodmaker]

 I don't know if you have found the information you are looking for,but if I were contemplating a power pack, my first action would be to put a gauge in the pressure line to the conveyor .A gear pump seems to be useful up to about 2500 psi,above that is piston pump territory.A gear pump would be simpler,and would require open center hydraulics.If you must use a piston pump,it should be internally compensated so you don't have to run pressure ports back to the pump to change displacement( assuming variable displacement)
 The next thing to determine would be flow. How many gallons per minute does it take to run each component at an acceptable speed?  Only after you have figured out these numbers can you calculate engine h.p. required.
  
 

[Hilltop366]

Sound like a lot of gpm for the size motor unless it is low pressure.

Not what you asked but I rarely miss an opportunity to voice an idea or opinion. ;D

I'm thinking it would be way cheaper and easier to run separate small motors with a belt drive on each component.

[krusty]

For my splitter I used a Detroit 2-53 from a JD440. It came with a front mount hydraulic pump attached. The 2-53 is rated at around 35 HP. Not sure on the volume of my pump but it works great!

There seem to be lots of 2 - 4 cyl diesels around if you seek them out. I find the larger HP (>20) gas engines to be very scarce.

[reride82]

The best portable power pack I saw was an old converted riding lawn mower. Everything was contained on the mower, and was converted to hydraulic drive. He mounted the reservoir to the front, the pump hooked directly to the 22 hp vertical shaft motor, and it had two outlets I believe. He would just drive it to where it was needed, hook up hoses and go. Granted this was in a farmyard and it didn't have to travel more than a half mile, I'm not sure how far you'd have to travel.

Levi

[mike_belben]

Was it a Case?   They ran 100% hydraulic drive in an open center configuration. Around 2200 psi maybe ?

[reride82]

Mike, I can't remember. It was repainted black, so I'm not positive.

Levi

[Riwaka]

To run  3000 psi  at 28 gpm you might need a Honda gasoline engine from Honda car.

Horsepower Calculator - Metaris Hydraulics   (3000 psi at 25gpm = 44 hp?)

With multiple hydraulic motors consider compound/ stacked hydraulic gear pumps with their own valve units to set the valves  relief pressures differently if necessary.

[mike_belben]

Pumps only make flow.  Restrictions in the flow circuit make pressure and that is what transmits work into the load.   With a conveyor and tumbler each moving a few sticks of firewood, it just wont ever see that kinda pressure unless there is a log jam induced stall or something.  Id bet theyre both turning by 1000psi.