DIY leaf collector

[Nightowl66]

I have a CC3206 and was thinking of building some sort of leaf collector. I have a yard trailer I can enclose. Is there enough "blow" from the deck to get the mulched leaves up a tube and into a trailer?

[ironman]

I attempted what you're talking about a number of years back, with a Crapsman GT.
My feeling is that there is enough "blow" as long as you are dealing with a reasonably straight tube.
Where the problem came in was because with collecting the leaves in a trailer,
you have articulation between the tractor and the trailer, creating the need for a longer tube with a lot of bends,
thus a big reduction in "blow" at the outlet. Failure Point one.
Failure Point Two was trying to stabilize the tube and still have it stay in it's proper place during articulation.
Failure Point Three was that even though some leaves made it into the trailer, there was not enough "blow" to pack them in.
I eventually gave up on the idea but good luck if you give it a go.

[Oak]

I have a 3184 with the non-fan assisted bagger. It is a model 190-212-100 and I think a lot of the 3184's came with them. The deck is only 44" but this thing works awesome on leaf clean-up. I'm not sure how it would work on just grass but I use my fan assisted bagger in the summer on my 3205.

[ol'George]

You can put on mulching blades, plug the discharge chute and make them disappear and become fertilizer for next year!

[johnwd98]

Originally Posted by ol'George

You can put on mulching blades, plug the discharge chute and make them disappear and become fertilizer for next year!

That only works if you have a minimal number of leaves, not when the yard is covered with a couple of inches of leaves.

[Nightowl66]

Originally Posted by ol'George

You can put on mulching blades, plug the discharge chute and make them disappear and become fertilizer for next year!

I have too many trees for that. I usually blow them into rows and use my FEL to move them.

[Paul_CC149]

There are a bunch of leaf sweepers driven by a pair of gears linked to (!) plastic wheels. They don't last much, resulting from plastic gears failures over a short period of time.
Here is the conversion I did: 3.5HP Predator engine, bike chain, pair of sprockets plus a pair of real wheels
- all it takes to turn the sweeper from useless to useful.
Although some machining was required.

[ironman]

I have a lawn sweeper and it works fine (with no motor),
only trouble is it fills up in one pass and I spend more time dumping than sweeping.
But I like your idea and it could probably used to create something bigger.

[Paul_CC149]

Adding extra bow and extending the hood helps increasing hopper capacity as well as preventing leaves overshooting.

[ol'George]

Originally Posted by johnwd98

That only works if you have a minimal number of leaves, not when the yard is covered with a couple of inches of leaves.

No it does work with 6" of leaves, either you keep up with them as they fall
OR
raise the deck up and make several passes over them.
it does work better if they are dry.
I raked leaves for 30 years finally resorting to using a 7' hay rake, still way to much work.
Then I discovered how easy it was using mulching blades, SOOO much easier.
BTDT