Manure Pump Ends Problems With Solids

Manure Pump Ends Problems With Solids MANURE HANDLING Equipment 25-1-43 Solids that settled out of liquid hog manure used to plug the lines on Eldon and Trent Winters' vacuum tanks. So the Iowa Falls, Iowa, team put together a simple device to stir up and chop solids before pumping manure into tanks. They no longer have to use the vacuum to load. They started with an old Badger pit agitator that mounted on a tractor's 3-point hitch. It used a big propeller to stir up liquid. "It worked better in earthen pits, but we don't have any of those," says Trent. They used the 3-pt. hitch and some of the structure of the old agitator, but replaced the propeller with a chopping/pumping cylinder that can be lowered straight down into their pits. The cylinder is 15 in. in diameter and 6 in. deep. To make it, they cut two 15-in. circles out of a sheet of 1/4-in. steel plate. In the top one, they cut out the center and mounted a hydraulic orbit motor on it, with the shaft through the hole. In the bottom circle, he cut an 8-in. intake hole. To make an impeller/chopper to mount on the orbital motor, they cut another 15 in. circle of 1/4-in. steel into four quarters and welded these perpendicular to a smaller circular piece, which they fitted to the motor's shaft. When the hydraulic motor is powered up, the impeller circulates and agitates liquid, chops up chunks of solids that have settled out or floated to the top, and then pumps the homogenated liquid manure into the liquid spreaders. "We don't have to use the vacuums on the spreader tanks to load them anymore," he says. Liquids travel straight up from the pumping chamber through a 4-in. PVC pipe. At the top of this pipe is a 90-degree elbow with a fire hose connection on it where the line from the vacuum tank attaches. Where the PVC pipe attaches to the cylinder, there's a valve that opens to let the manure circulate in the pit. When closed, manure goes up the PVC pipe to be loaded. It's operated by a rod alongside the pipe. Trent says the pump is made so it raises or lowers straight up and down. When it's removed from the pit, it folds together. They say the actual cost of this agitator/chopper/pump was minimal since most of the materials used were found on the farm. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Trent Winters, 14939 KK Ave., Iowa Falls, Iowa 50126 (ph 515 648-2145).

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