Why Tow & Blow? - The first truly portable Wind Machine
Mar 20, 2020 Posted by Brittany Cunningham
Nows the time to be thinking about the up-coming frost season, especially with the Governments $150k Instant Asset Write Off available until June 30, 2020, there are some big opportunities and savings out there to be had.
Delmade is proud to offer the 'Tow & Blow', a portable wind machine that is designed to perform.
About the Tow & Blow.
The Tow & Blow is the worlds first truly portable Wind Machine. Developed by one of the worlds foremost experts in the Wind Machine industry. In the early 1990s after returning home to NZ from living in the USA for 8 years (where he studied the use of Wind Machines for frost protection); kiwi engineer Kim McAulay began importing US Wind Machines into his home country. It didn’t take long for Kim’s creative instincts to kick in for him to design his own Wind Machines. Kim initially developed the Frost Boss however, he knew he could take all of the problems and issues that have emerged over time with Wind Machines and develop something that overcomes them all. The Tow & Blow is the result of Kims years of experience and is specifically designed to overcome the issues with traditional wind machines.
The biggest issue that Kim identified was the inefficiency of the current machines. The inefficiencies came about for safety reasons. Wind machines had moved away from having their engines on top of their tower (only accessed by climbing the ladder some 30 odd feet up) to being ground powered. Large diesel engines mounted on the ground driving through clutches, gearboxes and long drive lines powered the fans. This wastes an enormous amount of energy, uses large amounts of fuel and is very expensive to maintain.
The Tow & Blow is a portable and extremely affordable wind machine.
The Tow & Blow is highly effective in combating freezing temperatures, or frost, as well as soaring temperatures and the associated sunburn in plants. One of the huge benefits of the machine being portable is that it's highly adaptable it can be used in valleys as well as hilly terrain, and if conditions change it can be easily relocated.
Tow and Blow has unparalleled advantages over traditional tower fans
- The impeller is a shroud that increases its performance by up to 95%. The surround is aerodynamically designed to maximise airflow and acts like a turbocharge.
- The unique straightening vanes allow the air to exit the fan without spiral motion, therefore, maximising the directional momentum of the airstream energy.
- Tow & Blow blows away from the machine without obstructions.
- The Impeller is a high-performance composite fan with an optimised pitch for maximum airflow.
- The Tow & Blow uses a 23.4HP Diesel liquid-cooled engine with direct drive to the fan through a heavy-duty planetary gearbox.
- The Tow & Blow engine delivers an air velocity of 23 m/s of air (far greater than fixed fans using 150 HP ground powered engines)
- It only uses an efficient engine with a 5 litres/hour consumption rate compared to traditional tower fans that consume 25 litres an hour!!
- Tow and Blow is a fully portable machine and requires no fixed foundation or positioning permits, ensuring all your ground is free to be productive.
- The Tow & Blow has an incredibly low noise level, and is one of the quietest of any frost fan on the market today! (one of the biggest complaints we hear from customers who have traditional fixed fans is the noise level especially when houses are in close vicinity to the fan).
Disadvantages of Traditional Ground Powered Tower Fans.
A traditional four-bladed ground power wind machine is generally advertised as 150hp at 2500 RPM. However, these machines only run at 1750 RPM leaving just over 100hp at the flywheel.
Traditional tower fans then have to send this power through a clutch, a right angle gearbox, then up 30 odd feet of drive shaft, then through a 96 degree top box with rotation worm drive.
This leaves only about 70 HP available to spin the fan. Traditional Tower with open style fan is generally 5 meters in diameter. As it is un-shrouded the open fan creates an enormous amount of drag consuming a large percentage of the HP most likely leaving only 30 to 40 hp to generate airflow for frost protection.
All Traditional Tower Fans blow against the tower as it rotates further reducing HP. We calculate that the final result is approximately 20 hp of useable power.
Reports published on traditional tower fans claim to move 19 m/s of air. This is only at one point on the fan where it blows directly over its own tower as it rotates. OPUS reports show the true velocity of air to be 12 m/s of air averaged across the blade. This doesn’t take into account the loss of velocity and volume of air caused by the obstruction of the tower. The tests were all done in an unobstructed environment with no duct or shroud.
A wind machine that brings efficiency, affordability, and mobility to frost protection. The ability to move the machine from one orchard to another adds to the versatility of this system and opens up the opportunity to use the machine for more than just frost protection. It can help with maintaining average temperatures during flower pollination and drying fruit after rain.
Interested in a hugely versatile frost protection machine? Ask in-store for more information!
We would love to hear from you!
Please contact us at:
Delmade Pty Ltd
Phone: 1800 335 623
Email: info@delmade.com.au