Hi my name is Nathan Lange and i am new to making snow. and looking for any helpful hints that people can give.

I have 2 Hedco 600 fan guns, i dug a hole that will hold about 1 million gallons of water and just put in a well the feed the pond that will pump about 100 gal/min and then got a high pressure pump to pump out of the pond along with all the hoses and stuff to go along with it. i am blowing snow to make a snow cross track in northern Minnesota

again any help you can give will be appreciated

Well you have plenty of cold and you have a couple of very big kick butt guns...Hedco's do more gpm than your typical fan gun being sold today. Assuming they are the gas powered. Not familiar with the 600 model and would love to see pictures.

Recently saw there is guy on eBay (old Hedco mechanic) that has Hedco parts for sale.

i have 2 electric powered ones, so going to rent a generator. but the guns take a minimum of 200 gpm at 200 psi each so ya a lot of water. i guess it is going to be a learning curve how to make so being that i have never done it before

They shouldn't NEED a full 200 gpm each, but they will be able to reach 200+ gpm each. Those old hedcos with the individually valved nozzles are really something. We have parts to a few of them in the shop at work. Quite the nozzles on those suckers!

do you have any insight on what works and what doesn't? i have never done this before.

Well the majority of the challenge is getting everything tuned right. From what I hear, Hedco's old nucleators have a nasty tendency of clogging/freezing up, but I haven't got much personal experience with it.

When it comes to adjusting the nucleators, you should disregard the "glove test" technique you'll read about here on snowguns. The best way to tune them in my experience is by ear. You'll hear as it goes from all air to adding some water, the sound will change. It goes from a sharp, piercing air sound, and gradually becomes slightly more muffled. There will be a specific point at which it changes to sound more like water spraying. Once you hit that point, back the water off just slightly, and you should be pretty well tuned in.

As for adding bulk water, you want to run the nozzles with the smallest orifices when the temps are marginal. As temps drop, you'll be able to start opening nozzles, increasing in size as you go.

Out of curiosity, what exactly are you covering with snow? In cold temps, these hedcos will dump a whale 200 feet long in no time. 2 of them is just nuts.

thanks for the info. i am doing this for Levi Lavallee the pro snow cross racer he has built a compound with just about everything you can think of for snowmobiling, from freestyle course, to a foam pit,to the whole thing has sports lighting, and now we are building a snow cross track for training

quote:

i am doing this for Levi Lavallee the pro snow cross racer

Love watching him in the Winter X Games

wow... so it will sort of be like his own personal project X, like the Shaun White deal Nice!

A little dated, but still blows my mind

thats going to take a huge generator.

youre looking at easily $300+ per day for rental and $30+ per hour fuel

granted it sounds like your budget is pretty much unlimited. cant wait to see this!

Good luck with the guns.
Maybe we can see another double backflip this X-games. I agree with tominwi, the x games are awesome.

ya a generator is going to be about $1700/ just going to rent it for the month but thats not including fuel. as for the budget haven't hit it yet but getting close after figuring everything in the snow making is not cheep. but i hope it goes good.

ya right now he is concentrating on his world record long distance jump on new years

have you looked into how much it would cost to get 3 phase power at the site? Im sure its not cheap at all but it might be an option. If you could get it for a few grand it might be worth it. You'll save at least $30 or so per hour operating costs, and you wont have to rent a generator every year.

Curious how the track is made, is it basically made out of dirt then covered in lots of snow or is the whole thing snow? Just trying to get a better idea how much snow you'll be making.

With the generator, see if you can find offroad diesel. Same as regular diesel only its red and doesnt have road tax so you save like $0.40 a gallon.

Any specs on those hedco 600s? I tried searching them online but came up empty.

Also, got any pics? Would lovee to see the compunds, pond, guns, everything!

Oh and fun fact, at 400gpm, you'll drain that pond(with the well on) in approx 55 hours

haven't really checked into power yet just because the ground is froze and they wouldn't do it yet this year anyways, so that is on the list for next summer.

this year the track will be made entirely out of snow there is a couple dirt jumps he has we are going to cover but other than that all snow this year , then next summer going to build it out of dirt and cover that. and if he has a good winter looking at putting up 3 more towers with 10 1500watt lights on them so he can ride at night

ya had to order the spec from hedco
575 volts, 60HZ for power
air 12cfm, 70 psi built in compressor
fan is a 27" direct drive 3500RPM
water pressure 150-500psi
throw is 40'-130'
has 12 nozzles with 3 valves

no pictures yet but will get some this weekend going to start filling pond on friday they just got well done yesterday

my plan is to start blowing snow on the 18th