In article ,
Old Nick wrote:

[...]

Brakes will need to be smaller if before the trannie or any reduction,
because they are stopping a much lower torque when the engine is
driving, and _with_ a higher advantage if you are "freewheeling" (as
much as this thing will ever freewheel G). But if the trannie or any
part of the drive train after the brakes should fail, you have no
brakes, and also no drive train.

He could set up an emergency brake of sorts. I stuck one on a cart
once--it was just a simple parallelogram that would swing down far
enough to contact the ground--rolling in one direction would wedge it
further into the ground. Two back-to-back for bidirectional braking.
Simple, lightweight, damn near bulletproof.
Or use auto wheel ends with brakes in 'em and pull like all hell when
something goes wrong. (:

You are right about the braking under power, except that in most cases
that I know of, skid steer stuff that is not hydrostatic drive also
requires that you disengage a clutch to the stopping side of the
tracks before you brake to turn anyway.

I think the transaxle he plans to use has a differential in it, so
steering clutches shouldn't be needed--just twin brakes. I believe most
crawlers omit the differential because it's hard to make sturdy enough,
and it would make it possible for the tractor to drift to one side
rather that going straight when digging with only one end of the blade.
Shouldn't be an issue on this doodad.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/