Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Yes, you could run the bed with an orbit motor. You could use a hydraulic valve such as one from Raven. You would also need some type of bed sensor to monitor the speed of the bed as well as an electronic controller.
You actually have several choices for the hydraulic valve. The nature of the hydraulic system on the rig will somewhat dictate your choice. Raven makes a variety of hydraulic valves including some PWM models that work very well in situations that will allow PWM control. Other plumbing arrangements are usually necessary with closed center hydraulic systems. Closed center systems will often require the use of a dump valve to dump the oil back to the tank when application is not desired on the ends.
I'm guessing that your spreader may be a pull type behind a tractor. If the tractor is fairly new, the PWM concept could work quite well. The controller basically gives the valve short shots electricity which will allow the valve to pass a certain amount of oil to the orbit motor. If the system senses that the bed should turn faster, it increases the "width" of these shots which will open the valve further, allow more oil to flow and speed up the orbit motor and bed. At the ends, the electricity stops, no oil flows and the bed stops. This is pretty much the principle used on most modern tractors themselves.
I have even experimented with tying the spray controller into a tractors hydraulics themselves (JD 8310). I unhooked Deere's wiring to one of the remotes and wired that remote to a Raven controller. This actually worked (sort of) but the Deere dash complained since it "knew" that I had unhooked that remote. There are ways around that problem but I never really pursued it anymore.
My thinking was that this would eliminate the need to buy a valve for the spreader so the orbit motor could just be plugged directly into that remote on the tractor.
As has been mentioned there are a variety of controllers that could work in these situations. Calibrating a spreader rig is more difficult by the very nature of the product that working with liquid going through a flowmeter.
The Denisty, gate setting etc. are all intertwined in the correct calibration of a spreader rig.
Edited by tedbear 5/24/2007 07:53
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Variable rate dry fertilizer
