Plumbing in hydraulic fan for drill

[boasley]

Dear all, quick question for the experts...

I've got a MF 6280, excellent tractor but only has 2 spool valves, open centre hydraulics. I'm currently running a trailed drill, need 3 services - fan, lift/lower, bout markers.

So... I've got fan running on one spool, with a freeflow return back to the tractor. Bout markers and drill lift are sharing a hydraulic diverter/ splitter plumbed into the other spool.

Only problem with this setup is the diverter is restricting the flow too much and the drill is taking ages to go up and down...

Just had a brainwave - can I T into where the hydraulic pressure comes into the spool block, put a tap and a female quick connector on there, plumb the drill fan from there to the freeflow return with the ability to adjust fan speed using the tap, and free up my normal 2 spools to run bout marker and drill lift?

I'm pretty sure the tractor's got the hydraulic power to cope with this drill, it's just a case of plumbing it in more intelligently!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

 

[JeremyD]

Had power beyond fitted on our New Holland T6.180 not cheap though!!

 

[Fish]

What's your oil flow, how many ltr/min, depending on speed the fan will be drawing 24/34+,

 

[Richard98]

Just as another suggestion, we had similar issue with our 6265 several years ago needing 3 spools for the combi drill when it only had 2, dad managed to get an extra spool slice fitted and lever in the cab etc. not sure what it would cost mind as that was at least 12 years ago

 

[boasley]

Thanks a lot for the replies, oil flow isn't much, Crary fan on 3m Simba Freeflow running quite slowly, OK haven't measured flow but the same tractor will operate a KRM mounted drill with hydraulic fan, bout markers and lift it up and down on the linkage with no problem at all so I think she's got the power, it's just my diverter is restricting the flow.

The other thing is that I've always been told never to stop a hydraulic drill fan by pulling the spool back to the middle, as a result I'm fairly paranoid about knocking the spool off, if it was plumbed into my alternative idea then the oil would start running when the tap was opened and stay there till the tractor was switched off, one less thing to worry about!

Just don't know if anyone's tried anything similar before. Just seems a bit too easy and cheap to me!

 

[boasley]

Thanks Richard, your reply came up just as I posted mine, Ron Greet the well-known Massey breaker isn't far from me but they don't have anything at present, new one I'm told gets a bit pricey, if my cheap and possibly cheerful idea doesn't work I'll ring up the Massey dealers and find out...

 

[Andrew]

Before you do anything drastic, is it definitely the diverter causing the issue? Can you do a yard test with the lift plumbed straight into the spool, with the fan going? It may be a larger motor on the Simba fan sapping power / taking priority from the second spool. Your other drill is a mounted and the tractor linkage may be plumbed to have priority over the spools, if you see what I mean?

 

[boasley]

Thanks Andrew, I'll check it again in the morning before I start trying to bypass the entire spool system! Good point...

 

[mo!]

Before you do anything drastic, is it definitely the diverter causing the issue? Can you do a yard test with the lift plumbed straight into the spool, with the fan going? It may be a larger motor on the Simba fan sapping power / taking priority from the second spool. Your other drill is a mounted and the tractor linkage may be plumbed to have priority over the spools, if you see what I mean?

Is there a flow valve on the drill? It might be partly closed.

6280 open centre has pretty outdated hydraulics by modern standards. Same pump as 3000 series.

 

[boasley]

There is a flow valve on the drill, set fully open. There is a flow valve on the tractor spool, set partially open - I use this to get the fan speed right...

 

[Will 1594]

Pto pump and tank , maybe your anser, One of an old farmhand loader ,or linkage mounted digger ,

 

[MontyK]

If you hydraulic fan is plumbed up correctly, it should have a over run so when you stop your scv it should slow down slowly.

 

[Lincsman]

Is there no provision to set priorities on these tractors?

 

[Magnificent Earwig]

Pto pump and tank , maybe your anser, One of an old farmhand loader ,or linkage mounted digger ,

I know someone who rigged a petrol Honda engine onto the fan of his drill as he struggled with having enough spool valves and hated the idea of a pto driven fan. It worked well on his 6m vaderstad rapid.

 

[Suppin Diesel]

We used to struggle with our open center 6180 on the drill. Took all the oil it had just to drive the fan.

 

[boasley]

Thank you all so much for your advice, just been out and done a bit of a yard test, with fan plugged into one spool and running, drill lift/ lower plugged straight into the other one, she goes up in about 5 seconds from float to top and down in less than 10.

Through the diverter times are getting on for double that, so options seem to be:

1. Get another spool slice

2. Rig up a whole PTO pump tank etc system, or Honda engine, which seems a hell of a lot of work when the hydraulics are all working the system at the moment.

3. Don't use the bout markers, it is only a 3m drill, not too hard to work out where you're going

4. Get £40's worth of fittings and try tapping into hydraulic system as per my first post... if it doesn't work easy to put it back

or maybe leave it as it is and just take a good book with me to read on headlands whilst I'm waiting??!!

It's an excellent drill and I'm really pleased with it. Bought it from a member on here to try min till/ dd experiments and the local rivers trust paid for it, so I don't mind paying a bit to sort this problem out.

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[Will 1594]

A loader valve is plumbed how your thinking , but when you pull lever it would take priority and slow fan
A bit of clever plumbing and diverter valves and switch’s you could use drill up and down ,
Are marker rams single or double acting and does it have shuttle valve and sensor to click tramlines on

 

[boasley]

Thanks Will, markers are single acting, tramlining is not an issue here so one less complication, haven't investigated shuttle valve, there's quite a lot of hydraulics on drill including a central control block to fine tune the bout markers, they raise with the drill so are linked in some mysterious way.

Diverter valve I've got is 3/8ths, might be better to swap for 1/2 inch as that's probably slowing it up too. Plenty of hydraulic power, takes longer to come down in float than go up when you pull the lever!