Sno-Way trip edge plow

[Alan]

On 10/27 I got to look over the trip edge plow that Sno-Way will be marketing.

I'm not 100% impressed with the trip spring arrangement, probably will work OK but looks kinda hokey.

The trip portion is high, on the order of 10" so it will clear a curb. It will also allow mounting urethane wide enough that you can redrill it several times without it collecting snow and binding when it returns to battery.

[Alan]

Here's a shot of the back of the blade. That shiny strip above the pivot pins is a sectionof stainless steel, about 12 ga., that is formed into a radius around the pivot center. It follows the bottom edge of the moldboard when the edge trips. When the edge trips there is no gap opened between the edge and the moldboard.

[Alan]

Here's another of the back and the trip springs. It's probably a good working design, it just looks "unfinished" to me.

[Lawngodfather]

They have quite a cantaleaver on the springs when it trips.

Looks cool

[Alan]

And the lever arm is going to get (effectively) shorter as the spring loads up, so it may trip easy but not trip real far easy.

[Lawngodfather]

Veriable rate LOL

[bud16415]

Correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like it might be more of a constant rate type setup. You are right Alan the arm will get shorter as it trips but at the same time the springs are compressed more thus producing a greater force. If you work this out right you can sometimes approximate a constant force.

That’s what I did on my down pressure invention. I wanted the plow to hit the ground with zero force and then allow that force to slowly increases to a max limit. At that point I still needed the plow to be able to float while holding that down pressure. I worked it out that would happen at this point where the arm reduces in length in proportion to the springs going up in force. Its not perfect but close enough.

Those are some of the fine details of that device that were never really discussed too much on here but were covered in the patent.

They did move the trip point a good way up didn’t they. I’ll have to study the pictures a bit more when I get time.

Bud