Micro picking machine for hobby growers

[sashurlow]

If you follow the links in this post to one that GVH Dan posted (#9), the last poster on that thread was nagmay and they suggested a link to this rake... http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/p...835&title=The Groundskeeper II Full-Size Rake
For one, I would love to hear from Nagmay if it worked. For two, there are some possible finger pickers that are 7 for 7 dollars.
From my experiments, the shape of the picker was not a huge deal. It was the speed of the rotations and how fresh the hops were. Wet hops survived the process much much better than dry ones. After that, it was separating the hops from the leaves.
For me personally, unless the rake does something, my 5-8 plants are getting done by hand and the thing I created no longer exists. It was a fun experiment, however.

 

[tjpfeister]

I suppose running those rake fingers backwards would keep them from ripping things up.

 

[sashurlow]

Or you could bend the ends to the other half and make your triangle that way. I also wonder how much damage the wire ends would do if you keep the rotations to a lower speed.
Good luck.

 

[nagmay]

If you follow the links in this post to one that GVH Dan posted (#9), the last poster on that thread was nagmay and they suggested a link to this rake... http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/Products.asp?mi=48840&itemnum=33835&title=The Groundskeeper II Full-Size Rake
For one, I would love to hear from Nagmay if it worked.

It did work - sort of. I tacked the ends together and sure enough it popped the cones right off... unfortunately, it also sent them flying. In the end, it didn't save me much time for the 2017 harvest.

Right now, I'm working on something a bit bigger and more contained. Taking inspiration from this thread and the "crafty hop plucker", i'm putting together a single rotor with picking fingers sourced from sea-to-sky. They are meant for the Wolf 140/170. Ordered 56 with overnight shipping for about $70US. Cross my fingers that they show up tomorrow.

 

[nagmay]

Well... that worked better than expected...
if anyone is interested, I can write up some details.

 

[Apimyces]

That looks... dangerous. XD

 

[nagmay]

That looks... dangerous. XD

It's actually surprisingly safe... no, really.

The picking fingers are slower than they appear in the video - only about 3 rotations per second. This combined with the slope of the fingers means that you can "safely" place your hand against them without major issue. As a basic safety measure, I also hooked the motor up to a cheap dead-man foot pedal. This way it only runs when your foot is on the pedal. Seemed to work well.

Took about 3 hours to pick 40 mature plants - half a day and the whole yard was down, stripped, sorted, and ready to dry. Last year it took about 30 hours for the same yard.

I already have some big ideas to improve the design, but for a quick build, I was impressed with how well it worked.

 

[Apimyces]

Nice.

Yea the only thing I find is that you had your hands too close to the spinner for my tastes. Just a foot further back would be good.!

 

[TC3857]

Nice design! Did you ever write up any of the details or make any improvements to it? I think I can figure out most of the design based on the video but it doesn't hurt to have a good reference.

 

[nagmay]

Not yet, but I'll likely update it as summer rolls around and picking season approaches.

The big change I would like to make is to remove (most of) the current enclosure. At the time, I had to make it big enough to be stable, but it's bulky to move around and a pain to store when not in use.

Instead, I plan to strap the spindle directly to the bed of my truck. This way, on picking day, it can be set up and driven out to fields. With only a minimal enclosure, I should be able to get the cones to fall in the bed.