T-Rex - my towable wood chipper

[ruxu]

Finally!
I got my wood chipper made ready - although I am retired it took me over 13 months. The whole project started from this



and ended up with this towable hydraulic feed chipper



Initially I made the chipper with manual feed but first tests showed that it did not work very well so I decided to redesign it to hydraulic feed. As I had to buy the hydraulic parts as new the whole project budget was doubled.

The chipper is powered by a 16hp Briggs&Stratton cast iron engine from 1979. The axle and frame is from a old homemade trailer from 1980. The chipping wheel diameter is 500mm and thickness 20mm and fitted with two chipping blades. The weight is about 32 kg and it rotates at 1 300 rpm. The engine axle has a centrifugal clutch with two V-belt groves with diameter 90mm. The chipping wheel pulley diameter is 180mm. The hydraulic pump with a flow of 7,4 L/min. is also driven from the chipping wheel axle.

The infeed rollers are driven by 250ccm gerotor motors. The direction of the motors are controlled by two solenoid valves. A flow divider is also fitted to make it possible to adjust the infeed roller speed. Additionally an Arduino microcontroller is via an inductive sensor fitted to read the chipper wheel speed. If too heavy load is applied and the chipper wheel speed drops below a set rpm value the microcontoller cuts voltage to the infeed roller solenoids until the chipper wheel gains enough rpm again. The chipper is capable to chip wood up to a diameter of 125mm.

The feed table edge to indeed rollers is 1 250mm to meet CE safety regulations. An infeed cutoff bar is fitted around the feed table edges. Emergency stop switches are fitted above the infeed and on the control panel. The chipper wheel housing cover is also fitted with a safety switch.

The towable chipper trailer base is re-registered as a towable machine and it is now allowed to tow it on public roads. The total weight of the chipper is 380kg.

Here are some additional pictures taken during the project.

[Paul Jones]

Very nice design and construction. Arduino microcontroller for reading the chipper wheel speed is great addition.

I have a 10HP Patriot 3" chipper from the late 1990's and used all these years for about 50 hours per year of tree limb chipping. Unfortunately two weeks ago the old 10HP Tecumseh engine destroyed itself after being so well maintained and running faithfully and starting on the first pull. I decided it was time to buy a new one rather than rebuild. All my years of tree trim trimming and brush clearing with the help of the chipper contributed to saving our house from an awful wildfire in 2008 that burned our next door neighbor's house down to white ash a three brick chimneys.

[NortonDommi]

I thought I was looking at a bought one and wondered why it was in Homemadetools! Very nice.
I have a Mighty Mac, want a C7 Hansa and are going to build better than I have but electric,(so my mates won't borrow it),and quiet. I'm always interested in how others approach a problem.

[NortonDommi]

I forgot to ask. What method did you use to cut the plate?

[ruxu]

I forgot to ask. What method did you use to cut the plate?

I cut all the plates with a Bosch jigsaw.



It works surprisingly well on plates up to 2mm thickness. Cutting 3mm plate is getting a little bit slow and 4mm is both slow and eating up blades faster.

One thing that you have to do very often is to drill 10mm holes in corners for the cutting blade. The plate must also be held firmly in place, otherwise it starts to vibrate that slows down cutting and increases the risk for breaking the blade.



The blade to the right works for steel but not aluminium - the blade teeth get clogged. The coarse blade to the left is for aluminium. The jigsaw has adjustable speed and for aluminium you have to slow down a bit, otherwise aluminium starts to melt onto the blade making it stick in the cutting groove.

[DIYer]

Thanks ruxu! We've added your Towable Wood Chipper to our Farm and Garden category,
as well as to your builder page: ruxu's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Towable Wood Chipper by ruxu

tags: portable, hydraulic, farm tools, motor

[Jon]

Congratulations ruxu - your Towable Wood Chipper is the Homemade Tool of the Week!

I remember when you signed up on this forum you mentioned you that would post about your wood chipper when completed; you really delivered . You also had a popular Tire Lift and Aligner posted last month. Wood chippers are already rare homemade tools; the Arduino microcontroller for monitoring wheel speed especially makes this build stand out.

Some other nice picks this week: Metal Bender by bobs409, a Lathe Indexing Fixture by LMMasterMariner, a collection of Bench Grinders by h7eh7e, a HVLP Paint Gun Holder by bobs409, a Railroad Track Anvil by sossol, and an interesting discussion around a Mill Trolley by Ralphxyz.

ruxu - you'll be receiving one of our official HomemadeTools.net T-shirts:


Please PM me a mailing address, black/white color choice, and size preference, and I'll get it mailed out shortly.

And, we've added the wrench-on-pedestal award to the awards showcase in your postbit, visible beneath your username:




Congrats again and nice job!

[rossbotics]

Very nice job
Looks store bought, I know that took a while to build
By the way welcome aboard and a well deserved win

[auswelder]

That is a nice chipper you made there, what material is the blade made from and how did you go about balancing it?

Thanks

[ruxu]

Thank you for your kind praise.

I did not make the blades myself as ready made blades for a commercial chipper were available for 20€ a piece. They are for a Kellfri 100 chipper - basically the same as a Jinma chipper. I used two rotor blades and one anvil blade.



For balancing of the rotor I made two brackets with small bearings that I fitted on my car stands. I also made a adjustable alignment tool to set the rotor correctly to the axle before welding in order to avoid rotor wobble. When the rotor was completely welded I rotated it on the balancing stand and had to add a small piece of plate to get it balanced. Actually I first welded the plate piece and then had to grind off a little bit. I thought this was easier than removing material from the opposite side by drilling shallow holes due to the size of the rotor.



Hopefully this answers your questions.