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He Built His Own "High Volume Grain Vacuum"
"I built it because I didn't want to spend the money for a conventional grain vac and I wanted a simpler design with less maintenance. Best of all, it cost only a fraction as much as a commercial unit," says Mitch Kolanko, Hubbard, Sask., about his 2-wheeled, home-built, pto-operated grain vacuum.
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He Built His Own ˙High Volume Grain Vacuum" GRAIN HANDLING Pneumatic Systems 29-3-3 "I built it because I didn't want to spend the money for a conventional grain vac and I wanted a simpler design with less maintenance. Best of all, it cost only a fraction as much as a commercial unit," says Mitch Kolanko, Hubbard, Sask., about his 2-wheeled, home-built, pto-operated grain vacuum.
The unit uses a fan instead of a positive displacement pump and a transfer auger instead of an air lock. Grain is sucked up through a flexible rubber hose into a steel pipe mounted on one side of a separator. The 28-in. dia. fan turns at 5,000 rpm's and creates enough vacuum in the pipe to transfer as much as 6,000 bu. per hour. A 15-ft. long, 10-in. dia. transfer auger hydraulically folds out behind the fan and delivers grain into a wagon or semi truck. Air from the fan exits through an exhaust pipe on top of the unit. The pto-operated unit requires only a 75 hp tractor.
"I spent less than $6,000 to build it, not counting my labor. The cheapest grain vac on the market with comparable capacity sells for $16,000," says Kolanko. "And my grain vac is built a lot stronger. I've used it on a variety of crops and haven't had any problems yet," says Kolanko. "I have no sweep augers in my bins - I just go into them and suck the grain out. The 15-ft. auger is high enough to load directly into the biggest semi grain trailers."
He says the hardest part of the project was building the fan, which has to be dynamically balanced to exact tolerances. "Each individual blade has to be cut in the exact same proportion. I built the fan in our welding shop and had it dynamically balanced at a specialized balancing facility."
He says he'd be willing to build grain vacs for others if there's interest.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mitch Kolanko, Kolanko's Welding, Box 116, Hubbard, Sask., Canada S0A 1J0 (ph 306 795-2712 or 306 795-3428; email: k.welding @sasktel.net).
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