Will be curious to hear any thoughts, pro or con.
Had a 1066 now for maybe 8-10 months. Bought at same time, a Terrain King 15' flexwing HYDRAULICALLY powered mower. Runs off the 540 shaft. No shafts to the mower at all, 100% hydraulic.
Hanging on the 540 shaft is a 'speed increaser' that takes the 540 shaft and multiplies it by 4x to 2,160 rpm's and then the hydraulic pump is attached to the multipler.
First shaft broke within 1-2 hours of "putting around the farm", I really wasn't "working" on cutting things. I chalked it up to being 40 years old and working hard again.
Put new shaft in (pain to do!) and got maybe 100 acres cut... snapped again.
Had an engineer friend over, looked at the shaft. He said in his opinion, I was running it too slow (I sometimes cut roadside and DO dial down RPM's to create less havoc)
He said that was the problem.... since the multipler was doing 4x, the torque on the shaft was greatly increased. The way to lower that increased torque was to maintain it at full speed. (keeping the momentum going)
He concluded by saying if I adopted the logic of "when the mower is working, I'm running no less than 540 shaft speed"
The momentum of having it at speed is easier on it than running it at slower speed.
What say you?
Had a 1066 now for maybe 8-10 months. Bought at same time, a Terrain King 15' flexwing HYDRAULICALLY powered mower. Runs off the 540 shaft. No shafts to the mower at all, 100% hydraulic.
Hanging on the 540 shaft is a 'speed increaser' that takes the 540 shaft and multiplies it by 4x to 2,160 rpm's and then the hydraulic pump is attached to the multipler.
First shaft broke within 1-2 hours of "putting around the farm", I really wasn't "working" on cutting things. I chalked it up to being 40 years old and working hard again.
Put new shaft in (pain to do!) and got maybe 100 acres cut... snapped again.
Had an engineer friend over, looked at the shaft. He said in his opinion, I was running it too slow (I sometimes cut roadside and DO dial down RPM's to create less havoc)
He said that was the problem.... since the multipler was doing 4x, the torque on the shaft was greatly increased. The way to lower that increased torque was to maintain it at full speed. (keeping the momentum going)
He concluded by saying if I adopted the logic of "when the mower is working, I'm running no less than 540 shaft speed"
The momentum of having it at speed is easier on it than running it at slower speed.
What say you?