IB Flail Mower Blowing Grey Smoke and Tensioner Belt Snapped

[chapmanmachinery]

The whole idea of fitting a clutch inside a flail drive just fills me with dread. Having seen what a “proper” flail behind a tractor with 5-belts has to contend with torque - and shredded all five belts on several occasions - a clutch no matter how good stands no hope. A centrifugal clutch is just nonsense on a flail. Bound to fail.

When you guys start fitting the new injected iGX Honda V-twin engines, surely you’d direct drive it and do away with any sort of clutch which - just button start and stop surely, computer set rpm. All done and dusted.

In order to get the full Honda warranty approval, which we have, you need a means of disconnecting the drive on start up and ideally a means of overload protection, so you're essentially left with a centrifugal clutch, or an electromagnetic clutch. We currently use the former, and have invested a lot of time and money in getting the right unit for this application. We are looking at the latter option but the additional control system required alongside the fuel injected engine control isn't cheap and I am unsure if customers will see the return from the additional cost.

James

 

[HermitJim]

The whole idea of fitting a clutch inside a flail drive just fills me with dread. Having seen what a “proper” flail behind a tractor with 5-belts has to contend with torque - and shredded all five belts on several occasions - a clutch no matter how good stands no hope. A centrifugal clutch is just nonsense on a flail. Bound to fail.

When you guys start fitting the new injected iGX Honda V-twin engines, surely you’d direct drive it and do away with any sort of clutch which - just button start and stop surely, computer set rpm. All done and dusted.

I was wondering about this too. But surely you'd need some way of disengaging the drive for starting - that's a lot of load to put on an electric start, not to mention a cold engine I believe in the gokarting world they use torque converters but it's a very different application. One mower I looked at has a manual clutch option, which would seem to be the best compromise. How does it work with a tractor PTO? Can you engage/disengage it or does it run continuously once the engine's started?

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I was wondering about this too. But surely you'd need some way of disengaging the drive for starting - that's a lot of load to put on an electric start, not to mention a cold engine I believe in the gokarting world they use torque converters but it's a very different application. One mower I looked at has a manual clutch option, which would seem to be the best compromise. How does it work with a tractor PTO? Can you engage/disengage it or does it run continuously once the engine's started?

Modern tractors use a multi-plate wet clutch inside the tractor for the PTO. Manually or electrically engaged.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

In order to get the full Honda warranty approval, which we have, you need a means of disconnecting the drive on start up and ideally a means of overload protection, so you're essentially left with a centrifugal clutch, or an electromagnetic clutch. We currently use the former, and have invested a lot of time and money in getting the right unit for this application. We are looking at the latter option but the additional control system required alongside the fuel injected engine control isn't cheap and I am unsure if customers will see the return from the additional cost.

James

Why not fit an oversized electromagnetic clutch? Surely it would be better on a flail than a centrifugal clutch.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

We are looking at the latter option but the additional control system required alongside the fuel injected engine control isn't cheap and I am unsure if customers will see the return from the additional cost.

Honda are yet to release pricing for the iGX800 as I understand. That engine and the smaller iGX700 twin was only announced in the states at the start of the year, but looks a handy unit. They’ll want it to succeed in the aggressive OEM market, so can’t imagine the prices will be too crazy.

Control should be a piece of pee as it uses the industry standard J1939 CAN type control and you can get standalone screens for around £100 wholesale. I’ve fitted some to Deutz engines and it’s literally a three wire job into the diag. port. And you’ve got full control and all engine stats reporting...like this...

 

[chapmanmachinery]

Honda are yet to release pricing for the iGX800 as I understand. That engine and the smaller iGX700 twin was only announced in the states at the start of the year, but looks a handy unit. They’ll want it to succeed in the aggressive OEM market, so can’t imagine the prices will be too crazy.

Control should be a piece of pee as it uses the industry standard J1939 CAN type control and you can get standalone screens for around £100 wholesale. I’ve fitted some to Deutz engines and it’s literally a three wire job into the diag. port. And you’ve got full control and all engine stats reporting...like this...

View attachment 816514

Production pricing is due for release in August and series production scheduled for October, so time will tell! We have an 800 pre-production sample so fairly well versed with the details.

 

[davieh3350]

A simple lever to tension the belts once the engine is warmed up?