Linear actuator in place of cylinder

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Have a light duty skid steer 500 lift cap. It doesn't have auxiliary hydraulics. I'd like to put a grapple on the manure forks/forks for log loading on the splitter, brush moving and other tasks. 36" bucket.

I thought about using a hydraulic switching unit and the bucket curl function to run the cylinder but that project will be around $500 plus to complete.

Linear actuator might do the trick for much less and the actuator could be used for a lift table on the splitter as well as other projects like a lift for a box blade on my lawn tractor. 12" stroke 1000-2000lb force.

Thoughts?
 
I guess I don't know how to calculate swing speed of the end of the grapple but the one I was looking at had about 1/2 inch movement per second which equates to 48 seconds to open and close the grapple all the way with a 12" stroke. Pretty dumb slow even if it's using half of the stroke... That's an eternity I could probably spend manually rolling the log up the pile of split pieces or just picking up the brush and carrying it.

Every solution I come up with for the skid steer ends up being too expensive. The cheapest yet is a switching valve out on the end of the boom and a replumb of the bucket tilt cylinders, with a press of a momentary switch, would redirect flow to the graple. The problem there is its going to be bulky and awkward and involved to remove when not using a grapple, possibly making it hard to get in and out of the skid steer, unless I do it back at the valve and add long hoses.. which makes it cost similar to the power beyond valve option Jeff mentioned.

The skid steer is so small anyway its just sort of a joke anyways...
 
if you put the power beyond valve or the solenoid selector valve whatever you use somewhere back on the frame and just run two hoses and quick couplers out to the end of the boom then you’d have auxiliary hydraulics just very low flow
 
As much as I wanted the $500 solenoid selector valve I opted for the $100 manual valve to add Aux. hydraulics on my mini-ex. I located the valve where I could easily reach it and couldn't be happier.
 
So he used an inline orifice or something to get the bucket curl to move first? Very slick for his application!

Unfortunately I'm not doing something as specialized as that where I do need lots of control over the movement.
 
Have a light duty skid steer 500 lift cap. It doesn't have auxiliary hydraulics. I'd like to put a grapple on the manure forks/forks for log loading on the splitter, brush moving and other tasks. 36" bucket.

I thought about using a hydraulic switching unit and the bucket curl function to run the cylinder but that project will be around $500 plus to complete.

Linear actuator might do the trick for much less and the actuator could be used for a lift table on the splitter as well as other projects like a lift for a box blade on my lawn tractor. 12" stroke 1000-2000lb force.

Thoughts?

Could you replicate this design? Appears light weight and no need for auxiliary hydraulics.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=129&v=L0tyjeB-yAc

Ron
 
Ron, that's definitely very slick! Thanks, that really got the wheels turning. Boy.

The skid steer loader frame doesn't have as nice of a place to push against on the loader frame for the bottom jaw, but some excellent possibilities.
 
I am still torn between 2 worlds, a switching unit and a traditional grapple, and the brush crusher type unit. The brush crusher style unit seems to be winning out, but it will look much different. Problem is, the skidsteer still doesn't run to take measurements off of the maximum stroke etc or make a cardboard template, but it is the new focus here after spending 2 months fixing the truck.
 
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