Building A Hydraulic Loader For A Lawn Tractor

March 14, 2024 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

Lawn tractors are a great way to mow a large yard or small paddock. They save you the effort of pushing a mower around and they’re fun to drive, to boot. However, they can be even more fun with the addition of some extra hardware. The hydraulic loader build from [Workshop from Scratch] demonstrates exactly how.

The build is based around a John Deere LX188 lawn tractor, which runs a 17 horsepower Kawasaki engine and features a hydrostatic transmission. It’s a perfectly fine way to mow a lawn. In this case, though, it’s given new abilities with the addition of a real working loader. It’s fabricated from raw steel from the arms right down to the bucket. It’s all run from a hydraulic pump, which is mounted to the engine via an electromagnetic clutch. The clutch can be engaged when it’s desired to use the hydraulics to actuate the loader.

As you might expect, the humble lawn tractor isn’t built for this kind of work. Thus, to support the extra equipment, the mower was also given some frame reinforcements and a wider track for stability.

If you’re trying to give your neighbours mower envy, this is how you do it. Or, you could go another route entirely. Video after the break.
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Newest PlayStation Exploit Skips The Disc

April 10, 2021 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

Last month we brought you word of tonyhax, a clever exploit for the original Sony PlayStation that leveraged a buffer overflow in several of the games from the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series to load arbitrary code from a specially prepared memory card. But now [Bradlin] has taken that idea a step further and developed a software exploit for Sony’s iconic console that doesn’t need to be triggered from a game.

The exploit is considerably more complex this time around, but [Bradlin] does an excellent job of breaking it down for those who want the gritty details. The short version is that missing boundary checks in the PlayStation’s built-in memory card handling routines mean a carefully formatted “block” on the memory card can get the console to execute a small 128 byte payload. That’s not a lot of room to work with, but it ends up being just enough to load up additional code stored elsewhere on the memory card and really kick things off.

Unlike tonyhax, which was designed specifically to allow the user to swap their retail Tony Hawk disc with a game burned to a CD-R, [Bradlin]’s FreePSXBoot is presented as more of a generic loader. As of right now, it doesn’t allow you to actually play burned games, although its inevitable that somebody will connect those last few dots soon.

If you want to check out the progress so far, all you need is wire a PlayStation memory card up to an Arduino, write the provided image to it, and stick it in the slot. [Bradlin] says the exploit doesn’t work 100% of the time (something else that will surely be addressed in future releases), but it shouldn’t take too many attempts before you’re greeted with the flashing screen that proves Sony’s 27 year old console has now truly been bested.

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R/C Wheel Loader Clears Snow, Lifts People

January 10, 2015 by Adam Fabio 18 Comments

For some people, R/C cars just aren’t enough. [djMedic2008] has gotten his hands on a monstrous 1/5 scale wheel loader. The loader weighs in at 500lbs, and can lift up to 250 lbs. It was built several years ago as a prototype by [Richard] at Tiny Titan Earth Movers.

The design is based upon huge machines made by companies like Caterpillar and Komatsu. The 4WD system is driven a DC motor through a worm gear reduction. Bucket operation and steering are both operated by a hydraulic system driven by an electric pump. Just like the full-scale machines, the mini loader uses an articulated steering system. The front wheels are locked in place while the entire chassis bends at the middle pivot point. This allows for a much stronger solid front axle.

After several years of hard life, the loader came to [djMedic] in need of some TLC. The biggest issue was that the rear axle bevel gear had lost several teeth. This gear is under enormous loads when the loader is turning. A gear made of harder steel was the easy answer. Thankfully, you can order high carbon steel bevel gears from Amazon. The repair video gives us a look at the design of the loader. The main components of the machine are welded up from steel sheet and tube stock. This means that [djMedic] won’t have a hard time finding spare parts for his machine once he puts it to work clearing snow, dirt, or anything else that gets in its way!