Harvesting potatoes is not an easy task. For a long time, people tried to find ways to facilitate this business, to make it more enjoyable. And a solution was found in the form of a mechanized device designed to automate the process of collecting potato tubers. The people began to call the device a potato digger. And, of course, the inquiring mind of the craftsmen found a way to create such a mechanism with available improvised means.
Everyone knows that the simplest and most ordinary potato digger, assembled on its own, is based on a scallop digger with traction from a walk-behind tractor. The device does not have any ingenious details and it is easy to assemble it at home, and with such a “machine”, damage and yield loss will be minimized.
Do-it-yourself potato harvester is assembled on the basis of a home-made frame, the construction of which is welded. The main material that is used in this case is the iron channel number 8. The remnants of channel No. 5, metal plates (8 mm) and iron corners, measuring 63 * 40 mm, are used. For the manufacture of a coulter a potato digger take steel (5mm). Also very often there is a potato digger for a walk-behind tractor, made with its own hands, in which the coulter is made of a spoiled circular saw. And it works no worse.
This element is attached as firmly as possible to the elevator casing, made of hard material, with 4 bolts and nuts. The detail has a rounded sharpening, which allows you to not go deep into the soil, thereby almost completely eliminating the cutting of the tubers themselves.
Craftsmen also provided for a change in the inclination of the elevator (and hence the digging angle of the opener) by changing the mounting location of the casing itself to the base frame. In addition, you can fix the reduction unit (which is also completely done independently). A self-made potato digger includes the design indicated above in the form of cylindrical bodies connected together. They rotate two shafts: master and slave. Each contains prismatic dowels in the form of stars with welded hubs, which can be made from the remains of a metal gas pipe 25 mm in size.
The most difficult thing at home was the creation of a cleaner drum, which provides for any potato digger (do it yourself) to the walk-behind tractor. It consists of two roller chains of 94 links, which should be located on the rods with a protection shell in the middle. The design is called the "squirrel wheel." So that it holds firmly, it is mounted on two bent discs. Instead, you can use the wheel rim. The mechanism, sandwiched between the sprockets, rotates on two composite axes and the shaft. The axles are stationary, as they are welded to the support plates. But the driven stars on them are spinning. This happens because each is worn on the outside of the ball bearing and the axes are welded only after performing this action.
The input axis of the potato digger resembles a threaded bolt at the end. It is inserted into the hole made in the casing from the left side. Then a spacer sleeve, a bearing with an asterisk, an intermediate sleeve, another bearing and a spacer ring are attached. Only after all this, the axis is inserted from the right side.
A chain and bar tape of a potato digger is similar to a “squirrel wheel”, only a little stretched. The number of rods here is less, and they themselves are shorter. In order for the tape to slide well, the sliders are made of fluoroplastic. They also serve as a support for chain links and a way to protect it from external damage.
Each potato digger is made in good conscience. Its simplest part is the support and transport hub. Its creation does not cause difficulties, since each master performs it according to his own calculations. The operation of such a do-it-yourself created machine greatly saves energy and time in the struggle for potato harvest.