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Roller Skid Iterative Design

7K views 96 replies 17 participants last post by  Sam Am I 
#1 · (Edited)
The problem with building/fabricating is, what's known in mathematical circles as, "Exponential Issue Decay."

Your first iteration solves 80% or so of the problems you wanted to eliminate. It also creates new problems. It may, on occasions, solve problems you didn't anticipate.

The second fabrication iteration halves the 20% issues you missed the first time. The third go-around halves the halve from the second go-around... If you're a perfectionist, life is going to be mighty disappointing, because the exponential decay curve never truly reaches zero or anywhere near due to time/resource constraints.

A number of years ago, I replaced the friction skids on my machines with angle iron outriggers and plastic casters. After a season of use, I found the wear characteristics of the plastic wheels to be lacking. I replaced the casters with cast iron wheel examples. The cast iron versions have been a joy!

All would be well if I just stuck to my relatively flat and level driveways and sidewalks. But, I blow snow for many of the neighbors and usually clear a couple of miles of sidewalk nearby. Many of these out-and-about clearing efforts encounter sharp ledges of concrete that bang in to the wheels or edge of the intake scoop with a rather sudden and aggressive jolt. Many times as I'm tooling along clearing the sidewalks at a brisk pace, a ledge has stopped the forward travel of the blower to an instant halt. I keep walking and end up taking the control panel of the machine right in the muff puff.

Now, an iteration work-up of the effort to mitigate the issue.

The casters are 2". Making them larger in diameter would certainly curtail the sharper edges they encounter. But, the effort of fabricating a structurally solid axle at the increased height would be prohibitive. I'm thinking a 45° angled deflector on the front of the angle iron would allow for the machine to ski up over the edge with far less sudden stop effects.

Welcome to the journey of issue mitigation iteration #3!

Stay tuned!

------

Here's a photo of the first-pass iteration with the plastic caster. The angle iron remained unchanged as I swapped out the plastic wheel for a cast iron version.

The crash bumper roller skid angle iron will need to be longer for the front end to match up with the front of the blower scoop.
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#3 ·
Here's a view of the first iteration of the roller skid to provide the location of the OEM friction skid mounting holes.

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#4 ·
Maybe missing something but how do you adjust your scraper
bar clearance. The rollers appear to be fixed.
The mounting holes for the angle iron are slotted just like an OEM friction skid. But, unlike the OEM slots, only one needs to be slotted and it doesn't need to be slotted all that much to provide the necessary pivot. Once tightened into place, no more adjustment is necessary since the roller skids don't wear.
 
#5 ·
The problem with building/fabricating is, what's known in mathematical circles as, "Exponential Issue Decay."

Your first iteration solves 80% or so of the problems you wanted to eliminate. It also creates new problems. It may, on occasions, solve problems you didn't anticipate.

The second fabrication iteration halves the 20% issues you missed the first time. The third go-around halves the halve from the second go-around... If you're a perfectionist, life is going to be mighty disappointing, because the exponential decay curve never truly reaches zero or anywhere near due to time/resource constraints.

A number of years ago, I replaced the friction skids on my machines with angle iron outriggers and plastic casters. After a season of use, I found the wear characteristics of the plastic wheels to be lacking. I replaced the casters with cast iron wheel examples. The cast iron versions have been a joy!

All would be well if I just stuck to my relatively flat and level driveways and sidewalks. But, I blow snow for many of the neighbors and usually clear a couple of miles of sidewalk near by. Many of these out-and-about clearing efforts encounter sharp ledges of concrete that bang in to the wheels or edge of the intake scoop with a rather sudden and aggressive jolt. Many times as I'm tooling along clearing the sidewalks at a brisk pace, a ledge has stopped the forward travel of the blower to an instant halt. I keep walking and end up taking the control panel of the machine right in the muff puff.

Now, an iteration work-up of the effort to mitigate the issue.

The casters are 2". Making them larger in diameter would certainly curtail the sharper edges they encounter. But, the effort of fabricating a structurally solid axle at the increased height would be prohibitive. I'm thinking a 45° angled deflector on the front of the angle iron would allow for the machine to ski up over the edge with far less sudden stop effects.

Welcome to the journey of issue mitigation iteration #3!

Stay tuned!

------

Here's a photo of the first-pass iteration with the plastic caster. The angle iron remained unchanged as I swapped out the plastic wheel for a cast iron version.

The crash bumper roller skid angle iron will need to be longer for the front end to match up with the front of the blower scoop.
View attachment 203844
Well… Exponential Issue Decay!
Didn't know “it” had a name, haha. I know “someone” who ran that curve to infinity more than once….ahem.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Wondering if the loooong horizontal plane of the angle iron will tend to make/create a hydroplane/foil effect? As the flat horizontal plane passes over snow (thicker/EOD type), it might tend to compress under the plane and push up on the bucket. Maybe sloping the horizontal plane slightly nose down into the on coming snow will tend to push the bucket down slightly......Just a though, but maybe the scraper bar tending to pull down will counter act any up force, if any is created.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Wondering if the loooong horizontal plane of the angle iron will tend
to make/create a hydroplane/foil effect?
Something to think about, for sure.

Another solution I'm mulling over is the dirt bike disc rotor shark fin idea. Weld on a cam shaped flat of metal to the front of the angle iron duplicating the rounded bottom taper of the scoop side panel.

Too wide for me .....
Yeah, that was a concern of mine at the start. But, it's turned out to not be all that much of an issue for my situation.
 
#13 ·
Ahh…(God help me…) I think I see your vision, you propose to mount the new angled piece to effectively limit which encounters the obstruction first…the ramp or the wheel. That sounds like a simple and clever way to deal with varying surfaces. Anything under the lowest point of the ramp, the wheels can roll over, more than that and the ramps deflect the machine over. And if you add taper to the horizontal in the same fashion, the outrigger setup will deflect off, instead of catching on things.

Now…if you had caster wheels, think of the ease of turning..oh, wait (the sound of the Exponential Issue Decay horn)…best not travel down that path.
 
#14 ·
Wonder if it could go inside
During my research on this project, I ran across someone that had created 4" wheels or so out of 3/16" plate steel. With a bushing slightly thicker than 3/16" you get the large diameter wheel to handle the bumps and a very narrow profile to keep the bucket around stock width when the friction skids are included.

Depending on the inside clearance of the auger, such a solution might be moved, "indoors."

I didn't want to put any additional holes in my scoop or the plate wheel would be a possiblity.
 
#19 ·
During my research on this project, I ran across someone that had created 4" wheels or so out of 3/16" plate steel. With a bushing slightly thicker than 3/16" you get the large diameter wheel to handle the bumps and a very narrow profile to keep the bucket around stock width when the friction skids are included.
I didn't want to put any additional holes in my scoop or the plate wheel would be a possiblity.
Craftman blowers from the late 70s used a 5" dia wheel of 1/8" steel mounted to the scoop sides using a shoulder bolt as an axle with no bushing. There were 3 holes available to get some vertical adjustment. They worked well and were durable. There were also skids mounted behind the scoop to deal with soft surfaces.
 
#15 ·
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Now…if you had caster wheels, think of the ease of turning..oh, wait (the sound of the
Exponential Issue Decay horn)…best not travel down that path.
I assume you're referencing swivel casters? I thought about that too, originally. But, decided against it due to corrosion concerns of the swivel bearings.

As it turns out, the fixed casters allow the blower to turn just fine. It's no harder and possibly easier than with the OEM friction skids.
 
#18 ·
.

I assume you're referencing swivel casters? I thought about that too, originally. But, decided against it due to corrosion concerns of the swivel bearings.

As it turns out, the fixed casters allow the blower to turn just fine. It's no harder and possibly easier than with the OEM friction skids.
Post pics when vers. 3 is done… I don't have the need, but think it's a clever way to keep the machine from impacting “the plums” (as Jeremy Clarkson would say).
 
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#17 ·
so where on the curve was version 2? and where do you expect version 3 to be?
Version #2 is not pictured yet. It involves the cast iron casters. which functioned beautifully except for the ledge/edge crash issue all last season.

Version #3 is currently in the late stages of mental design. Inertia is carrying me to the dirt bike disc shark fin direction due to minimal material requirements and fabrication effort.
 
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#28 ·
Will someone provide me reasons why wheels would offer an improved replacement for skid shoes? It seems like a simple design made so much more complicated. Im not an engineer but my 8th grade math teacher utilized the KISS principle ;-)
They were designed by engineer Bill Raftery. I've had email exchanges with him and he was kind enough to send me a set of the skids as well as the offset adapters for my Honda HSS1332. The important features are ease of motion/steering, non-marking of surfaces & non-wearing bearing surfaces that don't require height adjustment over time.

Here's what Bill said about the genesis of the Roller Skid. MTD Products (Arnold, Craftsman, etc.) licensed his ideas:

"To make a long story short, I turned 60 and bought a snow blower thinking it was going to be like mowing the lawn. Wow, was I in for a surprise! I was faced with going back into the house after only half an hour and confessing to my wife that I just got my butt kicked. I was exhausted! That's how it all started. I spent the entire Winter mocking up quite a number of solutions that resulted in the Roller-Skid...
... to continue, I found that most of my exhaustion was caused because I was constantly fighting with the machine to keep it moving in a straight line. This was because the steel skids were scraping, grabbing and pulling me from side to side depending which skid was encountering the most resistance. This was because of areas on my driveway that had more or less snow covering the surface. Heaven help me if the right skid hit bare concrete and the left skid was on ice.
The original fix I came up with was simply attaching a wheel where the skid was bolted onto the side of the auger box. This was great until I hit just ice and snow... and then I missed the skid! It was at that time that it occurred to me: WHY NOT HAVE BOTH?!
Fact is, I'm not only trying to make my life easier... but I'm also aware that by rolling over the surface, I'm not damaging the surfaces any more. I learned this by talking to some contacts I made at Ariens. (Great folks by the way!) They informed me that equally important, the roller-skid design I was working on would protect surfaces. This was becoming increasingly important with all the stamped, decorative concrete driveways and walkways out there."

There was a V1 that didn't work out too well. What you can purchase now is the much-improved V2. Sadly, you can't get the offset adapters any more.

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#22 · (Edited)
I think wheels are primarily desired over skid shoes (*Poly) due to skids can wear down/out over time(esp if ran on rough/courser surfaces) and wheels are more of a forever thing..........Isn't KISS a band? J/K ;)

*Poly shoes are preferred over steel shoes because steel can tend to scratch/mar certain finished surfaces up.
 
#25 ·
lol......I think when the design is meant to stay afloat on top of a surface, like snow/ice(or water) surface, fiction becomes way less and therefor wear is way less and no wheels would be needed. Blowers are primarily designed to get right down close and run at the dirt/asphalt/concrete surface.

However I think I saw somewhere a blower wheel design that used a combo of a small ski with a wheel poking through the middle for the blower guy that wanted the skids to glide on snow and yet roll on asphalt if he desired both........Funny thing about that is it think I've seen that design on snowmobiles skies that run on streets when the guy goes from snow to no snow road.
 
#24 ·
Will someone provide me reasons why wheels would offer an
improved replacement for skid shoes?
Gladly! As mentioned above, I clear the driveways of numerous neighbors and take care of a couple of miles of community sidewalk. Friction skids of any kind wouldn't even last a season with those distances. In addition, I wouldn't want to be adjusting friction skids every storm to keep the scraper bar from excessive wear.

A nice side benefit of roller skids is that tucking the blower away in the garage by lifting up on the handle bars of the machine and allowing it to skate around effortlessly on the front wheels makes for easy stuffing into tight corner spaces without marring the garage floor.

To each their own.
 
#26 ·
" why they haven't made snowmobiles, skiis, sleds, ice skates, etc with wheels yet "

As Sam mentioned, because the items you mention ride on the snow, and need a wide snowy surface to glide over, with the exception of the ice skates, which glide over ice, not an asphalt driveway, unless you truly want to skate over asphalt, then you can, if you have what they call in-line roller blades.

It is a known fact that poly slides/glides over asphalt way better than its grabbing, rust wielding counterpart. It's also a known fact that a wheel will glide over pavement better than a flat steel surface. So, when you incorporate the skids, with a wheel protruding from its center, you have something that really works, called roller skids, and glides along very well.

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#27 ·
Yea I have seen them for sale, still doesn't convince me its just not another rotating part to break. I think this design was all for fun, which I support modifying anything for fun. But in reality my ST824 still has the same skids from the late 90s and the scraper bar is holding around an eighth with only a slight slope from level
 
#31 ·
The main issue I predict with these is the casters freezing up and resulting in flat spots.
Well. I have 5 years experience with them (and @Oneacer has had experience with them on MANY machines). I screwed up once and ground one flat because I didn't do a proper inspection before starting to blow snow. Easily fixed with some JB Weld Plastic Bonder, though. He has never had that issue and we both lube the wheels with lithium spray grease or something similar. The skids are now available with the mounting hardware including a spare pair of wheels. Should be a lifetime supply.
 

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#32 ·
Actually, 28.99 w/free shipping is a good price with the extra wheels (though probably never needed)... Prior to using, I do dismantle and apply Loctite Blue 242 (removable with hand tools) and re-assemble.
 
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