Mista Ballista uses hydraulics for lifting the engine to a 45 degree angle for firing, and also for winding the cord bundles. We also like having electricity on hand since Mr. B has a tendency to break, and need on-field repairs. This page describes what we are using to power up the system.

The 2003 Power System

We acquired this generator on Ebay. It was originally someone's home backup unit, which they never used. It generates around 5800 watts.

Our hydraulic power unit was designed and built by Jeff. The engine is off an old snowblower, and has a handy electric start. The pump and other hydraulic parts were bought new, designed for a log splitter. The Punkin Chunkin association requires that hydraulic hoses and parts are "like new", and not of junked tools, so this was important.

The frame is welded up bits of exhaust tubing.

In 2005, we started using an auxiliary trailer to haul our power units onto the field. This saved lots of grunting and lifting of these heavy items as we could just leave them on the trailer. It also helps keep our pit tidy.

The 2007 all-in-one Power Pak

In 2006, we purchased a 35 Hp diesel engine off a refrigeration truck. Sadly, the guys selling it thought they'd do us a favor by just cutting all the hoses and electric bits to extract the motor thinking we were going to part it out. So we had to piece quite a bit of it back together. Oh well.

We acquired an old welder/generator unit with a defunct gasoline engine. We measured up the flywheel interface on the diesel engine, and Jeff fabricated an adapter shaft so we could attach our welding head to it.

Once the adapter shaft was bolted onto the flywheel, the bell housing for the welder/generator head was fitted to an adapter plate, and then to the housing around the flywheel. To weld the generator housing onto the new adapter plate, we spent a bunch of time measuring the wobble to make sure everything was perfectly centered.

A really big wrench was used to spin the main shaft on the engine so that we could do the indicator measurements on the other side.

Once that was welded together, we were able to mount the welder/generator head onto the engine. There were lots of random dangling bits of wire and do-dads that enables the welder and provides AC power. Quite a bit of time is being spent building mounting brackets so all this stuff can be bolted down to something.

We bought two 19 gallon hydraulic tanks because they were on sale, cheaper than one 25 gallon tank, and fit into the footprint of the powerpak nicely. Sadly, we then had to plumb together a new monstrosity.

Once the tanks were mounted, the upper frame was built. The top of this frame is removable so we can get inside. In this picture, Kevin and Dave are laying out the location of where the radiator will hang.