Close up of a hydraulic gate

This is kind of a neat video of a hydraulic gate that shows the angles of the cylinder really well.
I like to mount the cylinders directly to the gate rather than up on a post. I think it's neater and less susseptible to breaking. Getting the right angle is kind of an art. The way I do it is by taking up the mounting arm, then using vise grips to hold the cylinder mounts in place. I'm looking to get about 1/2" to 1" of travel remaining both ways when the end of the gate hits it's stop.
This lets the gate stop it's own momentum and it lets the cylinder put a little bit of tension on the gate both ways. It seems to work really well this way. If you let the cylinder stop the momentum of the gate, you rmounting brackets will be attracting cracks onless you weld it up like a tank.
I like to have gates built that are using 14 gauge material for the bars except for the top rails, which is schedule 40 pipe to weld the brackets on to. Sometimes lighter is stronger, and this is one of them.
You can see that I'm only using 1.5" x 12" cylinders. This gives a really nice stroke and speed. This is with a 2hp hydrulic unit that is putting about 1.5gpm. It will bypass at about 1,200psi. The pump will bypass often with a set up like this, basically every time you use it. So make sure you put the pump somewhere that is quiet or you'll be hearing it.