Dozer blades and bucket loaders often require heavy-duty components to maintain optimal efficiency and operations in harsh conditions. One of our customers, Shawn, uses his ATV Dozer Blade and Bucket Loader Combo system with our PA-17 heavy duty linear actuators to enhance versatility and efficiency. This combination allows for maintaining snow parks, tubing chutes, and cross-country ski trails in the Montreal region during winter and excavating, and hauling heavy loads of concrete, and boulders during summer. Learn how Shawn @the.log.yard enhanced his ATV Dozer Blade and Bucket Loader using our PA-17 actuators!
Original Dozer Blade and Tiller
Shawn initially used third-party actuators from Amazon for his tiller and dozer blade to turn his ATV into a snow park maintenance machine to make backyard snow park maintenance easier. He started with a cheap ATV plow, heavily modified the carrier to convert it from a 4 way blade to an 8-way blade, and added his third-party actuators to drive the motion.
He repeatedly folded the actuator when trying to control the angle of the left/right blade and sometimes the shaft would fail under tension. These actuators claim 6000N (1348.85 lbs) push/pull force and never had any failures in their drive, however, their thin-walled aluminum shaft had regular failures. This motivated Shawn to look for actuators of roughly the same force, ideally faster, and with shafts that offered higher durability.
Finding an Upgrade for Replacement Actuators
Shawn first found our website via a Google search for "heavy duty 12v actuator" and discovered the PA-17 heavy duty linear actuator. The main selling points that made Shawn choose Progressive Automations PA-17 models include the ability to:
1. select the length and gearing to different force ratings
2. handle high dynamic and static force ratings
3. come with durable stainless steel shafts and sturdy housing
Shawn had a positive experience with our customer service team and was able to greatly benefit from our informative, clear, and thorough product knowledge. This helped in the selection process of choosing from our range of electric linear actuators for his 8-way dozer blade. Our team assisted in providing the information requested by Shawn including the tube used, wall thickness, material, and diameter for the inner shaft of the PA-17. While our customer service team initially had concerns about the duty cycle and heavy use case, Shawn found our PA-17 actuators worth the upgrade over his third-party actuators. This model also offered an ingress protection rating of IP65 for dust and water resistance in outdoor environments.
Installing The PA-17 Actuators into The System
Laying out the mechanics of a dozer blade with 8 ways of articulation, and as much articulation as needed to shape snow park features was challenging. Shawn found the extra size of the motor mounted to the side of electric actuators made installation more of a challenge than with hydraulics, however, the easy routing and flexibility of wires over hoses helped offset those difficulties. Achieving 8 ways of articulation was possible with 5x PA-17 actuators:
· 2 are used to run the blade cut angle/dump mechanism to achieve a full dump capability
· 1 for up/down motion
· 1 for left/right angle motion
· 1 for left/right tilt motion
He first only upgraded the up/down function actuators and left/right angle, due to cost, and initial uncertainty. One of the dump actuators and the up/down unit are rated for 850 lbs of force and 2000 lbs for the left/right angle function. The up/down unit runs mid-way on the lift arm. Shawn must use the cut/dump function and the cutting edge of the bucket in unison with the up/down actuator to lift anything more than 300 lbs, but once it's up, it can hold any load while bouncing around.
Adding a Clip-On Bucket Loader
After testing for a couple of days bulldozing through sod this spring with ease, Shawn decided to upgrade the last two cheap third-party actuators on the blade. He also ended up deciding to try to see if they were strong enough to run a bucket, so he built a bucket that clips on my blade and ordered an extra PA-17 actuator. This required a redesign of the cut control function for the blade and having it controlled by two actuators to get enough articulation for the bucket "wrist" (blades cut function) to both tip the bucket back to contain material, and tip forward enough to dump the material, all without compromising the blade/buckets other 6 directions of articulation.
The 8-way blade was built to mimic a snowcat’s blade, and adding a clip-on bucket started its life as a manual lift ATV plow. Shawn modified every aspect of it using scrap metal, his cheap flux core welder, and an angle grinder. Electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic actuators serve different benefits and drawbacks to suit specific requirements and environmental conditions. Because his ATV has a 12v power system, no hydraulics available, and no way to easily add a power take-off, going with the electric PA-17s was the easiest solution. Shawn works in winter building a snow park overtop of his gardens to grow food, so he also greatly benefits from not having to worry about hydraulic fluid from blown hoses or leaks.
The tillers themselves are powered by 48V batteries while the actuators for the tillers receive power from the 12V ATV battery, topped up by the stator. Waterproof connectors allowed for blade removal while wiring the electric actuators was quick and simple since they all had a basic 2-wire operation for their brushed DC motors and were 12v compatible. The stator can't keep up with power consumption when shaping a snowboard jump, however, this was when Shawn was using 2 or 3 actuators at over 70% duty cycle for over two hours before noticing his headlights dimming.
A custom weatherproof plastic box mounted to the handlebar has simple polarity reversing momentary switches that are used as the controllers to operate each PA-17 actuator. There is a singular power feed-in, with a 30 amp fuse for electrical protection. From Shawn’s experience, he can run 3 actuators at once without blowing the fuse.
Using the ATV Dozer Blade and Bucket Loader Combo
The clip-on bucket was used during the summer for hauling massive loads such as 600 lbs of boulders and cutting through 3" maple roots. Shawn ran them at over 60% duty cycle, days on end, for weeks. Sometimes he'll run them at 100% duty cycle in the winter with no problems yet for shaping and maintaining his snow park, however, we suggest using our PA-17 actuators within the recommended 20% duty cycle rating. The speed added by the 850 lbs gearing has been a great benefit for Shawn, and the PA-17 stainless steel shafts have no failures yet after 1 year in conditions that were 3-4x the abuse of the third-party models with aluminum shafts that failed.
“I have used the blade to push out man-made snowmaking piles, build many snow parks, break down and move old Icy snowbanks, and now, spread, and shape earth. The loader bucket I have used to excavate 1200 sqft of sod, and boulders and cut through 3" maple roots, down to 4ft. I have used it to excavate sandy soil with dense maple forest roots to build mountain bike jumps, and haul potted plants, bags of concrete, and 400lb granite boulders.” - Shawn
Future Plans and Up Coming Projects
For the future, Shawn has CAD drawings planned for a large excavator arm for the back of his ATV. He wants to upgrade the third-party actuator for his tiller to a PA-17 with a 16" stroke, as well as 3 other tillers he sold to his clients Conceptions Snotech and Adrénaline Urbaine who may upgrade to PA-17 units under Shawn’s advice. Shawn also made a 20 ft crane from an old TV tower years ago and intends to mount it to the ATV. It is all winch-driven and only weighs about 200 lbs while being able to lift 400 lbs at a full 16 ft reach.
To see more updates and cool projects by Shawn & Kate, check out their Instagram and YouTube channels below:
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/the.log.yard/?hl=en
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdcawCSu99QTCfcRjwnhveA
IN SUMMARY
Our PA-17 offers heavy duty capabilities with high environmental protection ratings suitable for many rugged outdoor applications including the adjustments of ATV dozer blades and bucket loaders. Thank you to Shawn & Kate for sharing your success story with us!
We hope you found this as informative and interesting as we did, especially if you were looking for inspirational ideas for upgrading ATV dozer blades and bucket loaders. If you have any queries or wish to discuss our products further, please do not hesitate to contact us! We are experts in what we do and will be happy to assist however we can.
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