People living in rural areas, and summer residents annually harvest potato crops. This process is quite labor-intensive, especially if you do the cleaning manually. To simplify potato harvesting, many people purchase special potato diggers for walk-behind tractors. However, some owners refuse such a purchase and try to make such a design themselves. However, before you make a potato digger with your own hands, you need to familiarize yourself with the types of diggers and the features of their manufacture.
Before you create a potato digger, you need to study in more detail exactly what this tool is used for. This attachment should be used together with a walk-behind tractor. It is used for digging up potatoes and digging soil in fields and garden plots.
The main function of a potato digger is to separate tubers from the soil and lay them on the surface of the ground. This is why many vegetable growers and farmers buy or make such devices themselves before harvesting.
Varieties
Any potato digger for a mini tractor is made to loosen the soil and dig potato tubers onto its surface. However, despite the fact that all potato diggers for walk-behind tractors perform the same function, such designs may still differ. There are several types of diggers that you can make yourself or purchase in a store.
Vibrating or screening
The potato grinder is made of a vibrating sieve and a ploughshare. The vibration product has a fairly simple principle of operation. During operation, the digger is placed in the soil and gradually removes ripened tubers from there. Together with the soil, they fall into a sieve to shake off unnecessary soil. This kind of potato digging has a serious drawback - it is very difficult to do it yourself.
Simple or fan
This fan potato digger for a mini tractor has the simplest design. It is made from a plow to which several arrows must be attached. During harvesting with a motorized cultivator with a simple digger installed, the plow will go deeper into the ground and the dug up tubers will begin to rise along its rods. The advantages of this digger include its versatility. It can be installed on any model of walk-behind tractors and mini tractors.
Transport
A transport-type potato digger is perfect for walk-behind tractors of a model such as the Neva and therefore should be used with them. The design of such a digger is very simple and consists only of a mobile conveyor and a ploughshare. The conveyor has a special hook that holds the tubers and helps separate them from the ground. A transport potato digger should be used only in areas with heavy soil, since this model does not dig up tubers well from soil with a low degree of density.
How to make a potato digger with your own hands
Before you make a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands, you need to read the instructions for making such products. First, you should familiarize yourself with the list of tools that will be useful for creating a manual potato digger. To make a homemade potato digger you will need:
- reinforced rods;
- iron plate;
- engraver;
- welding;
- Bulgarian;
Creating a Frame
The basis of the homemade product for a walk-behind tractor or a walk-behind tractor is the frame of a potato digger. To make a high-quality frame, you need to familiarize yourself with the basic steps of its creation.
Welding the fastening rectangle
The mounting rectangle forms the frame of the entire device and therefore must be done very carefully. To make the frame, you will need a square iron pipe with a length of at least four meters and a width of about 50 cm. It is cut into four different parts, two of which should have a length of 100–120 cm, and the rest - 80–90 cm. All cut pipes are welded in this way so that the result is a rectangular structure. After welding must be carried out hand grinding edges to remove sharp corners.
Fastening the jumper
The potato digger connected to the walk-behind tractor must adjust its level of inclination, and it is for this purpose that a jumper is installed for mounting special rods. It is mounted in the center rectangular frame. On the opposite side, two small pipes are installed, no more than 10 cm long and 25 mm in diameter. The tubes are mounted on the frame so that wheels can be attached to them in the future. They are installed with outside frame in one of its corners. After attaching the pipes, small holes with a diameter of 10–15 mm are made in each of them using a drill.
Installation of vertical racks
In order for a self-made potato digger for a walk-behind tractor to have a more reliable frame, you will have to attach several vertical racks. First, you need to step back 5–10 cm from the jumper along the frame and weld a small metal square measuring 35x35 cm perpendicular to it. Then you need to step back 15 cm from it and attach iron posts 30–35 cm long. As a result, the finished structure should look like an inverted staircase.
Rack connection
The final stage of creating the frame that will make up the potato digger for the tractor is connecting the edges of the stands. To do this, it is recommended to use metal strips 0.5 mm thick. Each of these strips is welded to the posts at an angle of 45 degrees, after which their edges should be connected to each other. Finished design will have the shape of a triangle.
Ralo and pitch board
Having finished with the frame, you can begin to create the pitched board and raal. These made parts of a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor are used to dig tubers out of the ground and clear them from the ground. For an inexperienced tractor driver and gardener, creating such elements may seem very difficult work. Therefore, before getting down to business, you need to familiarize yourself with the peculiarities of their manufacture.
Welding the rala
To create this element with your own hands, you will need to make two small holes in a small iron sheet with dimensions of 30x30 cm for installing M12 bolts. They will also have to be made in each of the racks at a distance of about 45 cm from the bottom. When all the holes are prepared, the metal sheet can be screwed on.
Then we place another iron sheet on the opposite side. IN in this case metal with dimensions of 60x30 cm and a thickness of 0.5 mm is used. The center of the attached sheet must be hit 2-3 times with a sledgehammer to form a cone.
Welding a pitched board
The device for digging potatoes must have a pitched board, and therefore, after welding the ral, you need to start making it. To create a pitched board, you will need to prepare one twig with a diameter of 10-15 mm and a length of about one meter. One of its edges is welded to the newly created rail, and the second should extend beyond the base potato digger for walk-behind tractor.
There are times when a welded rod begins to wobble greatly and it is necessary to create additional support for it. To do this, a riser 25–30 cm long is welded at the end of the frame. Then a square pipe is attached to the riser, to which three rods will have to be welded to ensure additional stability of the structure.
Installation of adjusting rods
A homemade potato digger for a walk-behind tractor must be equipped with adjusting rods. They are installed so that in the future you can independently adjust the inclination of each installed rod. They must be mounted to the first cross member on the product frame. To reduce the angle of inclination, the installed rod will have to be unscrewed so that its rods begin to protrude. To increase the angle, you will have to screw the rods back in.
Wheel mounting
In order for a potato digger attached to a walk-behind tractor to move better around the site, you need to install several wheels on it. To do this, you can use any wheels from wheelbarrows, the load capacity of which should not exceed one hundred kilograms. A mount must be welded to each wheel and installed on the potato digger.
For people who live in rural areas, harvesting grown potatoes remains a difficult task. Of course, today there are not many who do such work manually, using a shovel. Most began to buy specialized mechanical devices: walk-behind tractor and potato digger for it. And some, who have “golden” hands, the so-called “Kulibins,” invent and make such devices for the garden and dacha with their own hands, thereby saving themselves from hard work.
On the YouTube channel of Yuri Leskov we saw interesting model homemade potato digger of the screening type.
Here's what he says and shows about her:
DIY drawings of a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor
Today we will start making a potato digger with our own hands for the Neva walk-behind tractor.
We have such materials: these are the remains of a bicycle, figure eight wire, an old Wagner from which we will take wheels, a corner, sheet metal, profile, tie rods, tips.
Tool: grinder, drill and welding machine.
Potato digger design: frame, hitch with a walk-behind tractor, a knife from a steel saw was riveted onto the ploughshare.
Operating principle: let's start from the engine: from the engine, drive to the pulley, from the pulley through the eccentric, to the rod (steering rod from the car) and then to the device, which is fixed on ball bearings through the rods, connected to the share, so the share has a reverse forward motion that is necessary for digging and sifting potatoes. The principle of rumble. WITH reverse side Potato diggers wheels that are adjustable. There is also stretching device belt drive, which is made from a regular bearing.
Do-it-yourself potato digger for a walk-behind tractor: video from Yu. Leskov
Many villagers will like a homemade potato digger for a walk-behind tractor with their own hands. It helps make people's work easier.
Pros and cons of homemade units
Now labor-intensive process processing the soil and removing tubers is not done manually, because the industry has long been producing mechanized devices that help cope with the task quite quickly and efficiently. But they are expensive, and not everyone can buy them.
When purchasing such a device, it is impossible to predict how it will behave on the field, because it was developed by engineers and tested at an experimental site. Therefore, rather than overpay, you should think about building a digger for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands.
The advantages of such devices:
- Low price, because they can be made from any waste material, which is lying in the barn.
- You can make drawings and a design that fully meets the necessary parameters suitable for a specific piece of land.
- The unit is made “to suit you”, since the calculation is based on own strength(mainly applies to devices where it is necessary to use manual force).
- You can come up with various elements, which make the work easier, but which the engineer will not even think about.
Design features and types
Very often, villagers purchase or make their own potato digger, which works in conjunction with a walk-behind tractor, using its mechanism as a drive. This tandem is also used in field conditions, and on the home site with the same performance.
There is also a manual potato digger. Many are happy with it, but it cannot be used on a large field: it will take 5-10 times more time to cultivate the soil or remove tubers than with mechanized work.
Any potato digger for a minitractor or manual is designed for extracting potatoes, cleaning them from the ground and laying them on the ground surface. Typically, the design of a homemade potato digger for a walk-behind tractor is quite simple; it is not difficult to make.
A DIY potato digger connected to a petrol unit comes in 3 types:
- Vibrating (screening) installation.
- Transport option.
- Lancet view.
Many people have no idea how to make a potato digger and what parts it consists of.
Vibrating (screening) installation. The main parts are a vibrating sieve and a ploughshare. The principle of its operation is simple:
- the earth along with the harvest is picked up by a ploughshare and thrown onto a sieve - a vibrating grid;
- the tubers do not fit into the cells and remain, and the soil falls down.
This vibrating potato digger for a walk-behind tractor is very productive, but the manufacturing process is quite complicated.
The transporter version can be freely connected to any walk-behind tractor. The conveyor potato digger consists of:
- driving belt - a conveyor with a special device for engaging, holding on the platform, and cleaning tubers from soil;
- plowshares.
This type is much more practical than the screening (vibrating) type, but on loose soils it works much worse, and its effectiveness is low. It is not advisable to use it on such soils.
The pointed type is the simplest potato digger for a mini-tractor, because it has no moving elements or components. It is freely attached to any motor unit. The main working devices are a fixed ploughshare and several welded rods.
It works like this:
- the soil with the harvest is cut with a ploughshare;
- all this falls on special splayed inclined rods;
- the potatoes do not pass between the rods and roll down them to the surface of the soil, and the earth falls down.
This digger is effective on not very dense soils, where it is inappropriate to use other options for such devices.
Homemade potato digger for walk-behind tractor (video)
What you need to know when making homemade potato diggers
Before starting construction, it is necessary to accurately determine the density and type of soil being cultivated where the digger will be used. In places where such a conveyor-type device works ideally, the lancet type will function with difficulty, or even get stuck.
On small area It is not necessary to use a device designed for working in the field - a medium-sized digger that can easily be attached to a walk-behind tractor is sufficient. It is advisable to make an adapter that would fit many models of gasoline units.
Usually, homemade design calculated and applied in areas with low and medium density. To carry out such a design, which works on heavy and complex soils, you need to know physics, agronomy and mechanics.
Materials and solutions for insole and vibration devices
To make such devices, you need to get:
- steel channels
- opener cast from 5mm metal (high quality). Or you can make it from any tool, for example from a circular saw from a woodworking machine
- metal corners 40x40 and 63x63 mm.
- steel rods 8-20 pcs. (depending on the complexity of the design)
Some elements depend on the walk-behind tractor used. For example, a vibrating potato digger consists of a frame with an interface to a petrol unit and the following elements:
- pendants:
- chassis;
- various vertical rods for adjusting the vibrator.
And in order to create a design for a specific potato unit, you need to know exact dimensions adapter For example, a potato digger MTZ walk-behind tractor (mounting hole interface) may not dock with the Neva mini-unit.
A simple homemade potato digger (video)
Manufacturing of a screen-type digger
It is not so difficult to construct such a device, but sometimes a homemade potato digger for a tractor with your own hands leaves much to be desired. You need calculations, an accurate diagram, drawings of parts and knowledge of the assembly procedure, which you cannot do without.
First you need to purchase following materials and tools:
- profile (square) pipes 40x40 and 30x30 for the frame;
- pipes with a caliber of 30 mm;
- metal sheets 100x100 cm, thickness 3 and 4 mm;
- 10 mm rods;
- bolts, screws, nuts;
- grinder (angle grinder);
- drill;
- welding machine;
- engraver.
In order for a homemade screening potato digger to work reliably, all work must be performed sequentially:
- The frame is the main element. To do this, you need to divide a square 40x40 pipe into 4 pieces. 2 parts are 120 cm, and 2 others are 80 cm each. From all the sawn pieces you need to weld a large rectangle.
- Jumpers are necessary to install vertical rods on them for control. They are strengthened at a distance of approximately 20 cm from one end of the frame. On the other side, 15 cm of 30 mm caliber pipes are welded to strengthen the axle and wheels on them.
- Vertical racks. 5 cm is measured from the edge of your new frame (from the side where the jumpers are attached). In this place, two 50 cm squares welded from 30x30 pipes are welded or screwed. Having retreated 40 cm from them, it is necessary to install second racks of 30 cm each from the same material. Be sure to connect them with a 4 mm metal strip.
- Ralo is made from 3 mm sheets. Take two 40x40 cm blanks and secure them on the racks below (welding or screws), one on each side. Then prepare a 70 cm square from a 4 mm sheet, butt weld it to the first one and bend it with a sledgehammer or hammer.
- The grille is made of 10 mm rods. They are welded at one end from the bottom of the rafter so that the other ends protrude slightly (about 10-15 cm) beyond the base of the frame in the direction of the motor unit.
Wheels, rods and other elements are installed on the completed device. The potato digger is ready for the walk-behind tractor.
Planting, growing and especially harvesting potatoes is not easy work. Anyone who has done this work at least once remembers the feeling of endless swings of a shovel when digging up potatoes. We invite you to find out how to make a potato digger with your own hands for a tractor. Videos, drawings and photos from this article will help you with minimal costs make quality equipment.
Design of a potato digger for the Neva walk-behind tractor
A little ingenuity and the availability of available materials suggest the amateur gardener the way to create an excellent means of small-scale labor mechanization. The potato digger for the Neva walk-behind tractor is easy to assemble. We offer short description necessary materials and assembly sequence individual elements, dimensions and drawing of the mechanism, as well as a video on how to make a potato digger with your own hands for a tractor.
Photo of potato digger
A homemade potato digger for a tractor removes potato tubers from the ground and leaves them on the surface. All that remains is to collect the potatoes.
To make a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor according to the drawings, you need to prepare:
- corner 63x40 mm for constructing a welded frame;
- channel No. 8;
- metal plates for making ploughshares, 8 mm in size.
The frame of the potato digger for the walk-behind tractor is welded from a corner and a channel according to the drawings and video. You can make the equipment according to custom sizes. To make a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor, you need to follow these steps:
- The ploughshare is assembled from metal plates and attached to the elevator casing.
- The elevator can change the angle and this changes the digging angle.
- Parts that will be involved in the direct digging process must be sharpened roundly. This will help avoid cutting the potato tubers while digging.
- The reduction unit is made of 2 housings cylindrical of different diameters connecting the drive and driven shafts, which are made of steel.
- Sprockets with welded hubs are attached to the shaft keys.
Interesting video: Potato digger for a walk-behind tractor. Dimensions
Another part of the potato digger is the cleaning drum, which is a structure of two roller chains mounted on rods. For strength, the structure is mounted on curved disks. The rotating shaft transmits movement to the sprockets, from which the axes of the cleaning drum rotate. The slider is made of plastic, which ensures good sliding of the chain. The input axis of the digger is mounted in a casing. A sprocket with a bearing is attached to the input axis. Spacer bushings are attached to both sides of the sprocket.
Drawing with dimensions of potato digger
Potato digger drawing
Now you know, How to make a potato digger for the Neva walk-behind tractor with your own hands Dimensions according to drawings and videos. The use of agricultural machinery, even assembled with your own hands, significantly reduces the time of routine and labor-intensive agricultural operations. This will also increase yields and better preserve potatoes grown using advanced technologies.
The bulk of Russians' garden space is traditionally allocated to potatoes, because our people also call it the second bread. Many have transferred part of the labor of growing potatoes onto their shoulders, or rather onto trailed small-scale mechanization equipment: walk-behind tractors and mini tractors.
And if planting potatoes is not a big job, then hilling them, and most importantly, digging them up is not an easy task. For hilling and weeding, the hiller included with walk-behind tractors is most often used, but for digging in pure form it doesn't quite fit. Let's figure out what to dig and how to make a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor with your own hands.
There are several known designs of potato diggers for walk-behind tractors and mini tractors. Let's look at them: from the simplest to the most technologically advanced.
Fan potato diggers
The simplest ones to manufacture are also produced industrially, but most require some modifications.
It is immediately clear that they are based on the same hiller; it is this hiller, buried below the level of the tubers, that loosens and turns the soil. But he brings up the dug potatoes - a fan welded to the back of the hiller. Its role is played by metal rods, welded at a distance of 3–4 cm from each other, diverging and curved in the upper part.
The amount of depth is regulated by thrust wheels, and the transverse bar serves as a footrest, upon which a person, with his weight, provides the required depth to the device.
It is this type of fan potato digger that seems to us to be the most productive. The digging process itself can be seen here:
You will have to modify the shape, angle of attack and other nuances yourself, taking into account your soil, the power and driving performance of the walk-behind tractor on which you plan to install the potato digger, and even the varieties of potatoes that form tubers at different depths.
A type of similar digger without a fan, designed for two people:
Potato diggers with a roar
This is the most common type of potato digger, produced by various machine-building plants in Russia and abroad. It has slight design differences, primarily in the design of the screen drive - oscillating during operation of the pan, which allows the potatoes to be partially cleared of the soil while the potato digger is moving.
The knife of such a digger can have different configurations. It can be fixed motionless, or it can be hinged and oscillate slightly during movement, simplifying the process of digging up tubers. The width of the knife is 35 – 40 cm.
DIY drawings
It is this type of potato digger, despite being quite difficult to manufacture, that is made by home craftsmen with their own hands more often than others. We offer approximate drawings with the main dimensions of such a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor.
A large number of joints of moving parts makes this device regularly serviced, but the result of its work is of better quality than that of fan-shaped potato diggers:
Potatoes are peeled better from the ground and are located on its surface.
The magnitude and frequency of oscillations of the screen may vary and depend on the design of the drive, but even with minor oscillations, cleaning occurs quite well:
Conveyor potato diggers
They are much easier to self-production, but in our opinion, peeling potatoes from the soil is no worse.
Their knives are the same as those of the screening ones, and the potatoes are peeled while they move along the conveyor belt. It is clear that the longer it is, the better the potatoes will be peeled, but long conveyor belts can only be installed on potato diggers used with tractors. On walk-behind tractors, they will interfere with the person walking behind him.
The conveyor belt drive may be different. If it is taken from the wheels of the digger itself, then they must have good lugs so that they do not lock on wet or very loose soil.
Also interesting in this design are the rear guides, which more compactly place the potatoes behind the belt.
In this self-assembled conveyor potato digger, the belt drive is carried out from the power take-off shaft of a homemade walk-behind tractor and is transmitted by a motorcycle chain.
To view a picture, click on its thumbnail on the right
When making a potato digger of this type main problem there will be a selection of the rotation speed of the conveyor drive gear and its coordination with the speed of the power take-off shaft. In this model, the power take-off shaft rotates at a speed of 500 - 800 rpm, and the gearbox is taken from motor boat with a gear ratio of approximately 1:2. The rest is selected by the size of the stars for an approximate walking speed when digging 2-3 km/h.
And yet, the connection between the speed of the conveyor belt and the wheel speed seems more appropriate to us.
There are models designed for specific walk-behind tractors and mini tractors, like this one for mechanisms with a side power take-off shaft:
Drum potato diggers
This is a rather rare type of equipment for mini-equipment, so it is mostly homemade. Peeling potatoes from soil in such devices occurs quite efficiently, as does laying them on the ground, but the design itself is quite controversial, and the tubers are more damaged than when digging with the above-mentioned potato diggers, and therefore are worse preserved.
What is simpler about them is the direct drive of rotation from the power take-off shaft. Everything else: making the drum, thrust rollers and bearings is clearly more complicated. The design of the knife does not have any special features, except that it is preferable for it to have a more rounded shape in the back so that the potatoes are not further damaged when they get into the drum.
Horse-mounted potato digger
There are still quite a lot of them for sale on the Internet. They are imported mainly from Poland and converted into mini tractors and walk-behind tractors.
At the same time, taking into account the higher speed of movement of this equipment in comparison with a horse, in addition to modifying the towing device, a limiter-shield is placed on it on the side on which the dug potatoes are thrown. Otherwise, it will have to be collected in neighboring areas. A wedge-shaped paw digs up the potatoes, as in fan diggers, and the drive of the device that removes the tubers from the ground is carried out by wheels with lugs. The higher the travel speed, the faster this potato extractor rotates.
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