A Cultivator Made from “Eureka”

There is no doubt: a motor plow or a microtractor on a household plot is a jack-of-all-trades helper. But where the plot is quite small, and trees and shrubs in the garden are planted rather densely, a walk-behind tractor with an internal combustion engine simply has no room to turn around.

That is where a simple yet highly effective cultivator based on an electric motor from a washing machine comes to the rescue. Its working wheel with narrow, long teeth leaves behind a well-loosened strip of soil about 120 mm wide, with a digging depth of up to 150 mm. And the overall layout of the design provides a minimum working-unit width (without handles) of only 175 mm. This makes it easy to maneuver between beds, on narrow strips of land along the house, and between bushes — that is, where previously only hand tools could be used.

The main working part of the cultivator is a steel drum Ø 200 mm, to which narrow saber-shaped teeth are welded around the circumference. The set of their tips (similar to the teeth of a circular saw) ensures uniform soil loosening across the width of the cultivated strip.

The frame is formed by a U-shaped steel tube with an outer diameter of 20—25 mm. Welded to it from below are pieces of 25X40 mm steel angles that serve as brackets for the wheel axle and for the bolts that fasten the electric motor mounting plates. Handles bent from tubes of the same diameter are bolted or welded to the longitudinal sections of the frame at the top.

Torque is transmitted from the motor by a two-stage belt-and-chain drive with an overall gear ratio of about 35, which makes it possible to use a motor of only 0.125 kW. From the output shaft, through a Ø 40 mm pulley, the torque is transferred to a Ø 300 mm pulley mounted on the intermediate shaft; from the second stub of that shaft, through a moped sprocket Z1 = 10, it goes to sprocket Z2 = 41, fixed rigidly on the working wheel.

The electric motor and the housing of the intermediate shaft bearing assembly are mounted on a steel supporting plate 3—4 mm thick. The required rigidity is provided by a second L-shaped plate connected to it at the top. At the bottom, both plates are linked to the frame angle by two bolts and can pivot about a common axis — for adjusting chain tension. The power unit is locked with a special screw.

To keep wet clayey soil from lodging between the teeth, two tubes are welded to the front horizontal crossmember of the frame; they run tangentially to the wheel drum and act as a cleaner.

“M-K” 7’84, Yu. GRIGORYEV