Making motorized hose reel out of cement mixer and wooden cable spool.

[Dmitry]

I have four connected 100 feet 3/4" hoses around the property that I use to irrigate from time to time. Got tired of hoses laying around on the ground and carrying them and thought of a motorized hose reel. The one that can accommodate that much of a hose or close to it costs $800 or so. So, I thought to make one from the cement mixer that I don't use and a smaller cable spool. I have a bigger one but it probably going to be too much for the gear.
I want to attach the spool to the mixer instead of the drum.
Can you throw ideas on hows this attachment can be done? I'll post pictures of what I have. Thanks.
Or maybe I can use this motor in some other setup for this?

 

[stoveliker]

I'd only do this if you have very good safety stops built in, because it'll have to be geared to go slow but then it won't stop if you get tangled up in it.

Strict current limits.. and never kids handling it.

Just a thought.

 

[Jags]

Supporting that spool on the motor will be difficult. I would consider making the spool a standalone with the motor driving it kind of like a PTO system
Side note, pulling 400 ft of Hose is going to cause a lot of stress on the area closest to the roller. You may find that you start pulling hoses in half

 

[Dmitry]

Supporting that spool on the motor will be difficult. I would consider making the spool a standalone with the motor driving it kind of like a PTO system
Side note, pulling 400 ft of Hose is going to cause a lot of stress on the area closest to the roller. You may find that you start pulling hoses in half

Yes, I was thinking about this being unstable. Now thinking about stationery design with some kind of cart or crate So the motor won't pull it toward the hose.

 

[festerw]

I think you'd be better off starting with ready to go hose cart and adding the motor.

Something like this, then add the motor and a clutch.
(broken link removed)

 

[armanidog]

Do a shallow trench, run some PEX pipe to a yard hydrant (s).
Quit messing with 400 feet of hose altogether. .

 

[Corey]

Lots of good suggestions above. Would help to know what tools you have to work with. Can you torch or lathe cut a plate steel flange, drill holes, cut the threaded portion off that "T" handle and weld those together? The wide flange...I'm guessing it would be 8-12" or greater, could then bolt to the wood spool. I guess alternately, you might be able to cut the very top of the "T" off and epoxy that shaft into a strong piece of oak, hickory, ash, etc and make some sort of round shaft the spool could slide over... if you're more of a wood-working guy. But either way, 400 ft of hose, with residual water, is going to have some mass!

The other main issue is some way to get the thing to freewheel, or spin the opposite way. Does the cement mixer have 'reverse'? I don't know that I've seen one with that, and as we mentioned before - it might be pretty hard to spin a ~40:1 gearbox 'backward' from the output.

As others have said, with that amount of hose and torque, it would be good to make some sort of emergency cut-off or dead-man switch... possibly a lever that you have to hold up for 'run' but if you drop the lever for any reason gravity shuts the whole thing down.

 

[brenndatomu]

Do a shallow trench, run some PEX pipe to a yard hydrant (s).
Quit messing with 400 feet of hose altogether. .

Best answer...

 

[moresnow]

Best answer...

Ditto.

 

[PaulOinMA]

I agree with stovekiller and safety.

Mark Fidrych, former MLB pitcher, got caught in the PTO under his truck.

Please don't be a Darwin Award winner.

 

[zrock]

Cool little plan.... i have never seen one of those spools hold together very long, go out and look for one of the plastic ones places that deal with electrical or hydraulics always have some laying around for free... Then i would build a steel frame front and back and bolt it to the reel. Since you are going to be trying to pull a lot of weight reeling up that hose i would make some sort of mount for the back of a lawn mower or something