Rolfe Designs | Tools/equipment
Rolfe Designs
Phone: +61 427 759 252
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25.01.2022 The Field Day to launch the new 12volt solar powered Hydraulic Cattle crush was held on Tim Rogers cattle property One Tree on the 22nd March was a great success. People were very keen to see how technology has transformed the old manual crush into a safe smooth quiet and being solar it's a complete unit in it's self. More photos and video will be uploaded in due course.
25.01.2022 Carrying on from the previous post this is a photo of the first crush & a phot of my father's drawing.
21.01.2022 Hi All, Sorry as it's been a while since my last post but as you can see from the following video & photos I've been busy building 3 crushes with 2 of them going up to central Queensland. I had a laser company at the Gold Coast cut all the steel fpr me & then I had it shipped down in packs & then the fun bit starts putting all the pieces together like a giant jigsaw puzzel. This new design is in a flat pack where we start off with the base, then the 6 legs & the the top. This way the hydraulics can be mounted on the top piece before it is mounted on the legs making the assembly much safer & also easier to transport. I hope you enjoy the photos.
21.01.2022 Part 2 of the SafeCatch Cattle Crush explained - the Side Squeeze and Noise Reduction features
21.01.2022 Safe Catch Cattle Crush in action.
21.01.2022 It's interesting how parts of us we take after one parent & other parts of the other parent. I've got a box of papers that were my father's & I've been trying to sort through them because they are quite old & fragile & some of them are of the Grader Unit he designed for the old Massey Ferguson tractor we had back in the 60's early 70's. Don't forget this was before there was the use of hydraulics on tractors so it all worked on the 3 point linkage. Now I'm not saying that I a...m in the same league as my father with designing because he could draw his inventions & I can't, but what is very interesting is the amount of change that has occurred not only in the machinery we use but also the technology we use to design these machines. A prime example is in the photo of my fathers drawing, another of the first crush I built & also of the short video I asked my engineer to prepare & how he used the 3 dimensional drawing program on the computer to draw the plans for the cattle crush. We have been able to put in the computer the figures of the force needed to catch & hold the beast that the hydraulics engineer & I acquired from the 1st crush I built & from that it showed the wear points & the stress points of the complete new design which we were able to change while still at the design stage. Due to the size of the video I'm posting the photos in another post. See more
20.01.2022 Just a taste of what's to come! Watch this space!
20.01.2022 Rolfe Designs Safe Catch Cattle Crush. Firstly I'd like to say that I started out in a family operation where we bought a large undeveloped cattle property near Springsure in central Queensland in 1980. In 2001 my wife Neiliya & I moved to Armidale where we bought properties near Ebor & Guyra. We ran cattle on all these places & so over the years we have strived to make cattle handling as safe as possible. It wasn't until we moved to the Armidale district when I only had my ...wife & 2 daughters to help, that I started designing a 12volt hydraulic cattle crush & hydraulic curved race to make it easier & safer for us & also for the cattle. So 15 years later & 4 crushes later I've got the design that I'm happy with. After I built the 3rd crush (the normal lever action crush) I involved a hydraulics engineer& we took all the pressure readings we needed & I involved a mechanical engineer & we redesigned the whole crush where we didn't use levers giving us a greatly superior mechanically efficient crush. I now have a remote controlled, solar charged, battery powered, fully self contained, quiet cattle crush that has a rear & front head bale & a separate top & bottom side squeeze making it safer than a parallel Squeeze. Now there's no need for noisy generators or air compressors that stir the cattle up & irritate the operators & being remote controlled, you don't have to be beside the crush to operate it, giving you the ability to push the beast up yourself. The next step was to test the crush, battery & solar panel when it was raining & the results were amazing. It was used for 12 hours in these conditions & the battery voltage barely dropped. Now that I've got the crush to the standard that I want, the sky's the limit. Full automation of crush, yards & drafting would be just the beginning. My contact details are; Greg Rolfe Ph 0427759252 See more
17.01.2022 The SafeCatch Cattle Crush: The Head Bail Explained
13.01.2022 Welcome to Rolfe Designs! We are a primary industry based design business, specialising in new age agricultural equipment and products for today’s expanding technology market. Using 12 volt batteries, solar and superior technologies. ... Watch this space for upcoming projects and field days!
09.01.2022 I first started using the remote control for the cattle crush about 15 years ago & have found it not only reliable but also an incredible addition to the crush as it gives you greater versatility as seen in the video. I found that the cattle were quieter going into & also once in the crush as I wasn't beside, or near them, making them nervous. Once caught I could squeeze the bottom side squeeze & then the top side squeeze in to stop them moving about & so lessening the chance... of them harming themselves & also myself or others working with me. When I was weighing cattle it allowed me to be either in the pound drafting or pushing the cattle up the race & still be controlling the crush with the remote, which, when I was on my own, or short handed, I was still able to work the cattle. As we all know, the quieter the environment the quieter they are, hence making it easier, safer & faster to get the job done. The crush comes with 2 remotes. One is powered by 2 AA batteries& the other is wired directly to the 12 volt battery on the crush in case the AA batteries go flat. See more
08.01.2022 I'm sure that you all know the risks we take every day at work on the land but I'm going to show you some figures that really hit home. As at the 30th July there has been 100 Australian workers killed at work in 2020. In 2019,175 Australian workers were fatally injured while working & 144 workers in 2018. In 2018,8 of those workers were female & 136 were male. There are a lot of dangerous jobs on the land, but in my experience, the cattle yards & especially the crush are rig...ht up there in the danger zone. Now I know our young people are quick & very agile but so are the cattle & sometimes the cattle come off better. I know, because I was young once & in my mind I still am but experience & the mirror tells me otherwise, so that is why, I think this crush that I've built is so important. The hydraulics does all the hard work. The head bale & side squeeze gently immobilises the beast letting you complete the job quickly & safely. To my knowledge it is the only hydraulic cattle crush to work soley on a 12 volt battery & a solar panel making it a complete & compact unit. See more
03.01.2022 Last week your response to my post was just incredible so this post is going to be a bit different. This week I would like to thank all those people who reacted. All those who liked. All those who commented.... And all those who have contacted me for more information. It has given me a real boost to know that you, by your reactions, have appreciated all the hours and effort that has gone into designing and developing this crush so as to make it the most user friendly and safest crush that I can produce using the latest technology in design and solar. One of the posts with the most reactions was the one about the dangers in the yards and it was this that made me realise that safety is on everyone else's minds as well. So I know that this crush, with the remote control, the fast, safe head bale, the thicker steel, the independent side squeeze and the controllable solar powered hydraulics can deliver safety to both us and the cattle. Once again, thank you all for the most amazing response and please keep a watch out for my next post.
02.01.2022 The crush has been drawn up on the computer by an engineer & as you can see from the 2 pictures, these pieces & actually all of the steel in the crush have been laser cut making it very precise. Each piece click together similar to a jigsaw puzzle. The flat metal is 10 mm, the RHS is either 3mm or 6mm & the pipe is 3mm making the crush incredibly strong & is designed to last in all environments. The design allows for each piece or the entire crush to be hot dipped in gal or t...o be sandblasted & powder coated. Either option is very durable. All the pivot points are either Acetal & bright bar or shoulder bolts & bushes or bearings making them able to be changed if wearing happens keeping everything pivoting smoothly so as to keep the noise level down which is so important. The gate latches have also been designed to reduce noise by the precise cutout for the striker to sit in when shut. As you can see from this & also from the small videos I am posting that this crush is different, making it safer, stronger, quieter & more user friendly. See more
01.01.2022 I was looking through some old photos this morning and came across early photos of when I'd first left boarding school and our family had just bought a large cattle property in Queensland and it made me realise just how far we have come in that time. It also made me think about how graziers and farmers are at the forefront in technology with auto steer tractors, cattle and weed spotting with drones and the assistance of computers just to name a few. It is this technology that has allowed me and the engineers to produce this latest version of the Safe Catch Cattle Crush. Just like all successful businesses, we on the land are always striving to increase productivity and decrease labour costs (time) and all the while creating a safe environment for workers and animals.
