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Giant Power Tool Helps Put Up Hot House Tunnels
Canadian handyman Reid Allaway built a gigantic battery-powered hand tool that he says may be the world’s heaviest cordless “drill”. Made from a forklift steering motor that’s powered by the same lithium battery packs, workers use the powerful tool to install about 200 ground anchors twice a year on 300-ft. long caterpillar tunnel greenhouses.
Allaway’s super drill’s big DC motor runs through a 43:1 gear reducer. The frame is made out of pieces of 1-in. pipe. The electronics include a 50A mini-ANL fuse and fuse holder, a reversing contactor (2 x DPST), a reversing switch to select direction by choosing which coil of the contactor to energize, and a push-button trigger switch.
The output drive has an adapter that Allaway built to securely connect with the eyelet screw-in ground anchors. He might eventually make a chuck-type adapter for it so he can use the drill for other tasks. But the main reason for building it was to handle the job of placing and removing the ground anchors, which Allaway says has always been a real drag to do by hand.
    “This rig is a hard-working tool that really takes the back-breaking labor out of anchor placement,” he adds. “Whoever uses it has to be strong enough to manage a 50-lb. cordless drill.”
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Reid Allaway, Tourne-Sol Co-operative Farm, 1025 Chemin St-Dominique, les Cedres, Quebec Canada J7T 1P5 (ph 450 452-4271; info@fermetournesol.qc.ca).



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2019 - Volume #43, Issue #3