Finetuning a safety life-saver
Two Waterford brothers have developed an enhanced PTO shaft guard system, reports Jamie Casey
AFTER a decline of 40pc over the previous year, farm deaths and accidents spiked once again in 2016.
Waterford brothers Noel and Ger Hickey, who both work in the agri contracting and fabrication fields, noticed this trend and decided to apply their minds to the problem.
They noted in particular that PTO-related accidents continue to occur at an alarming rate.
The power and torque a PTO shaft transmits is enough to shred a a human limb in a fraction of a second.
Most of us are familiar with the demonstrations provided by the HSA for the last number of years, yet the carnage continues.
The speed at which the operator can be pulled into the rotating PTO shaft is frightening, with no time to react.
While a correctly guarded PTO shaft is safe, these guards are often damaged by the lift arms or the locking chain is broken or lost.
We’ve all been there, the guard becomes damaged and starts rotating with the shaft. Instead of fixing it immediately to eliminate the hazard, we push on to get the job finished.
The repair then gets put on the long finger, but at what cost? Ask the families of entanglement victims who stared sadly at that empty chair during Christmas.
They would of course now gladly give the five minutes needed to repair the chain, or small cost of a new guard.
SAFE SHAFT SYSTEM
Wanting to eliminate the problem for once and for all, the Hickey brothers developed the Safe Shaft System.
“We initially wanted to neutralise the safety issue of the PTO shaft, but during testing we discovered that the system offers many more benefits,” explains Noel Hickey.
Every vacuum pump on the market today requires rotational input to operate. Generally, this rotational input has been provided by the conventional PTO shaft.
Seeking a safer alternative, the entrepreneurial brothers began testing a hydraulic drive system to replace the power take off shaft. But is this really new?
While many manufacturers now offer a hydraulic driven option from new, crucially until now there was no supplier on the market offering a retro fit kit.
The Safe Shaft System makes use of the existing gearing system within the pump, which reduces the necessary input speed, thereby reducing oil flow required.
The hydraulic drive system offered by most manufacturers is a direct drive to the rotor of the pump, whereas the Safe Shaft System is fitted onto the existing PTO stub shaft on the vacuum pump.
This means the Safe Shaft System can operate at a greatly reduced RPM, thereby reducing the levels of oil flow required to power the system.
Most tractors offer in the region of 120 litres per minute of oil flow, and Safe Shaft requires just 40 litres per minute to operate.
This is important as it leaves the remaining 80 litres per minute to operate auxiliary equipment such as macerators and trailing shoes, should they be present on the tanker.