Tiny DIY Snow Blower - It Kind of Works

I've wanted to make an RC snow-blower for a while now. I've made or played RC vehicles with tires and treads, plus some for the air and even a prop driven Klingon Patrol Boat. But I never got around to making the snow blower attachment.

When it snowed on the first day of Spring, I realized I had let another Winter go by without working on this project. So I grabbed a plastic auger and started to experiment.

It works well enough to prove the principle, but not well enough to actually use.

The auger did move some snow off to the side, but most of the snow was moved bay the blade from the plastic bottle I used as the scoop.

The auger is scavenged out of the refill kit for a laser printer. I've successfully used it to move ball bearings, bird seed and cat food (think airsoft and automatic pet feeders). It's sturdy and easy to attach to a motor or drill. But the blades are small, about an inch in diameter, and only run for about 6" along the shaft.

I anticipated that it might be too small to move much snow. But it is the perfect size to fit on some of my RC wrecks and even the LEGO Mindstorm robot base. So I had to at least try. I was halfway correct.







It did move the snow... sort of. But not nearly well enough to make any real difference. All I want is to have an RC toy to clear the snow on the front deck. I'm not expecting to clear the driveway with this thing.

But the blades on this auger are so small that they barely moved the snow. Most of the movement came from the blade-action of the scoop, not the auger itself.

You can see how the clumps of snow got bigger than the auger. I've got to scale this thing way up before I can actually ise it for any real deck-clearing fun.

The auger did move the snow, but as the snow got pushed down the length of the scoop (plastic bottle) it clumped into chunks bigger than the entire auger. At that point the auger lost effectiveness. It tried to move the chunks, but mostly it just chopped it up and re-compacted it.

It looks like I'm going to have to make an auger with wider blades - probably 3 inches deep (6" dia.) with 2-3" between the blades at minimum - something larger and deeper than the snow clumps. Whether it winds up 3d printed or made from scrap metal is still to be determined.

I would call it a successful experiment, but not a working prototype. I learned something and have a better idea of the scale I need. After I get the auger made, I will need to figure out how to "blow" the snow - probably a more difficult problem than the auger.

And from past experiments I know that I will need some good treads on the tires or wheels. Again, scale is important. So really exaggerated treads and an overpowered blower will probably be needed. It looks like I'll need to use my biggest RC toy car just to carry the blade, but it's made for speed not power at low speeds. So looks like some gearing needs to be changed too. Maybe this isn't going to be as simple as clamping an auger to the front of a toy car after all, LOL

BTW, I didn't come up with the idea of a scale RC snowblower. There's a whole community on youtube that do really detailed and realistic versions. Check them out if you want to skip the experiments and go straight to building.

I just wanted an excuse to have some fun outdoors during the winter. Maybe by next year I will have a better prototype and be able to toss some serious airborne snow.

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