What voltage are you going to run that 5 HP at?
All the 5 HP I looked at were 230v only min.
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Hey Chris .
Have you given any thought to something like this .
http://www.harborfreight.com/8-HP-301cc-OHV-Horizontal-Shaft-Gas-Engine-EPA-61415.html
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Yeah, I’ll have to think about gas a bit more seriously. I’d like the ability to do both with an easy swap. Boy that electric is nice, powerful and quiet. But gas goes anywhere…
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I think the shaft twisted off because of the amount of torque made when gearing up to a much bigger pulley on the business end compared to the one on the motor side. It gave it so much of a mechanical advantage that the 5/8 inch shaft couldn’t stand the torque. I have seen motors brake like this before, and a nice clean brake like that tells me it got twisted off by the torque. Bigger shaft should solve the problem. You could also add a love joy coupling to save your shaft from grenading. If you tell me what size shaft you plan to use, I can probly bring you a coupling I have a few laying around…
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Might look on Craigslist for an old air compressor or something.
Hi Terry 
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7/8" most likely. That seems to be the most common size for 2 hp to 5 hp.
Thanks a bunch!
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Yup, the one I’ve got now is 220 V. Anything less is too hard to run off of a normal breaker.
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Chris the Predator Wayne mentioned are nice engines. I have been using them on the drift trikes I’m building. The 6-1/2 H.P. is what I been using and They run about 120 dollars including shipping. They are really quiet and easy starting. I could bring one of the new ones to Argo’s and we can put it on your chunker if you bring it with you and see how it.works out if you want. Give us something to do while we are messing around.
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hey chris does the shaft have a key way on the motor side?
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Howdy Marvin
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I don’t have a lot of experience but I will throw out my thoughts. I do not think it was a “torsion” break. When in school we used round sticks of chalk to write on the “black board”. If you try to bend a piece of chalk it breaks “square” across. If you twist it until it breaks, the break will start as a point and go down the length on a 45 degree helical. I suspect that having the big pulley and the motor pulley both bolted down solid cause a bending in the shaft and at 3400 rpm it caused a break. What ever you use for a motor/engine, don’t bolt it tight. Use a hinge and let the weight tension the belt or add a spring adjustable tensionor.TomC
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I have to respectfully disagree with @TomC on this one. Steel and chalk just don’t act the same.
@Chris’s shaft looks just like the shaft of many of the seized bolts that I’ve seen torqued off, e.g. Look at the lug bolt after an idiot with an impact gun snapped off a lug.
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poke around or ask on craigslist. or ask scrapper type of people to keep an eye out for one. They do get thrown out with pieces of equipment. They sometimes show up on CL for fairly cheap. I got one for 40 bucks.
If you do want to use gas, i would probably just use a generator. You don’t get the same torque curve with a gas engine. Generators are handy to have around and even better if you have a regular use for one.
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Hi Chris
Just a suggestion, why not make a flang on to your wheel of your truck with a male agricultural pto spline and do the same on your chunker , then unhitch the truck , back up next to your chunker lift the wheel, hook up a agricultural pto shaft and put the truck in 1 st and chunk away ?
Chunking on gas !
Thanks Patrick
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Thanks for ALL the helpful suggestions. I’m going with a 5hp electric motor for now, with the possibility of swapping a gas motor in eventually.
Decent prices on motors at this place, this is what I ordered:
This may yet make it to Argos, but I’m making no promises at this point.
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FYI, I used a 3 ¼", 3 belt pulley. I haven’t noticed any slipping. I did check and loosen the tension on the belts after seeing your pictures.
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Chris
I would offer to pick this up for you and haul it to Argos to save the freight. But you wouldn’t have time to work on it before hand
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Just a random thought, not a suggestion or criticism… I wonder if the flywheel is actually needed.
Obviously, something cheap that breaks or slips between the expensive parts is needed, especially if you hit a rock and it bounces backwards. But I wonder if the motor itself is able sustain the travel speed and generate enough constant torque to eliminate the need for the flywheel.
It is needed for a gas engine because of the torque curve, and to help balance out the torque between the power strokes of the engine cycle. understandably the 5hp motor isn’t as smooth as a 3-phase would be, but I wonder if it is enough.
<\random thought>
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On my little two cylinder twenty HP tractor I broke a shaft that powers the PTO while chunking . After the addition of the flywheel to the chunker it seems to run much smoother with no shock loads to the drive train .
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Umm… extremely needed, and the heavier the better. It wouldn’t even work without a flywheel.
As it was, I was using a 2 horse motor which was slightly underpowered. The flywheel would carry the blade through a full chunk or two no matter what, even after the motor was shut off - but once the flywheel started to lose speed, I would have to wait for it to catch back up. With the 5 hp electric, it will work exactly the same - only the wheel will never slow down.
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