Woodchippers: PTO vs gasoline driven

[Jkott]

Do any of y'all have experience with this chipper?

My Boomer 30 has half the horsepower of that Deere, and my Woodmaxx 8H would have not problem with those 1.5” sticks that almost stalled the deer.

It’s looks neat that you don’t have to trim off all the branches, but most of the pines, alders, birch and poplar branches I chip I can leave long enough that I really don’t think I can lift them into this thing. I just have to drag it close enough to get the hydraulic roller to grab it.

I can see why he suggests wiring an estop button into the seat safety (not sure how that kills it, because the seat safety isn’t used when in neutral and parking brake is on). There may be no stopping a big branch after it starts feeding. Hopefully it doesn’t catch on you. I’ve always been a big fan of hydraulic infeeds that have stop bars around the intake.

 

[AirOpsMgr]

FWIW, I recently bought the Woodland Mills WC88 for my 39.3 PTO rated tractor (50.3 HP engine). Stupid fast shipping by the way, had it within 1 week of my order date.

I've run the chipper at multiple speeds just to see how it reacts; Running in the 540e, you can hear that it's not spinning at full speed but still eats everything I feed it up to 4" without issue, you can hear it slow down a bit if chomping on a continuous length of 4" hardwood, but it doesn't bog down to the point of stopping the chipperbor stalling the tractor, but noticeable nonetheless.

Hardwoods above 4" is where I can tell it's starting to bog, especially on long pieces, so I bump the tach up to full PTO for the bigger/longer/harder stuff.

The biggest diameter I've run through it at 540e was 6" pine, and while not the best example, it still ate shorter lengths without bogging down too much at 540e.

In short, if trying to run at lower PTO RPMs, it's gonna boil down to type of wood, length and "your feel" for how the chipper is handling the volume.

Hope that makes sense, a lot of variables involved, but best I could describe it.

 

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I went ahead and bought this one. Got it for $1,899 before tax.

Bigbear Power Tornadic 5 in. 15 HP Gas Powered Commercial Chipper Shredder, Self Feeding, Tow Package, Electric Start BBC52 - The Home Depot

The GX Commercial BigBear Power is the ultimate 15hp 5 in. chipper that is packed with features to simplify your work. It is equipped with a HIGH-TORQUE dual shiv V-belt Ultra race clutch drive and an

www.homedepot.com

It looks like a very nice unit for the price, just not much info online about it. I'm thinking this is a pretty new company. It's gas powered by a 500 cc single cylinder engine, and is rated at 15 HP, and 5" diameter of wood. Really anything that big is firewood for me, unless it's pine or something similar. I like that it's rated for highway towing, and the 5 year warranty on it is hard to beat. I just hope they stay in business. All for purchases like this I generally prefer not to use large retailers like HD or Lowes, but rather smaller businesses and tractor dealerships, but hopefully this works out well.


EDIT: BTW thanks for all y'all suggestions. I think a tractor unit with a hydraulic feeder would have been cooler/funner, and in some scenarios preferable, and more convenient, but at the same time I think this thing should be all the chipper I need, and for much less than most of the tractor units I saw rated for 5" or more, with a gearbox rated to handle 60+ PTO HP. I will say those Nova Tractor units looked like pretty good values, but they say they're out of stock on the units I was looking at that had the hydraulic feeder unit June which I need to get my yard cleaned up before the grass starts to take off and demand cutting every 2 weeks. Plus this will most certainly save on fuel costs. These newer emissions tractors drink fuel 2x's or more faster than they did back in the day. I need to get my old Ford 861 diesel back up and working, or maybe my parents old Farmall M. Even my parents FarmTrac 665's use way less fuel than my 18 JD 5075E.

 

[oosik]

I wish when we were burning wood - long ago - there was something other than pine for us to compare. All I have here is 80 acres of pine. We burned wood for twelve years and then went to pellets.

Pine burns easy - smells good - easy splitting. Oh, well - that's ancient history.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I wish when we were burning wood - long ago - there was something other than pine for us to compare. All I have here is 80 acres of pine. We burned wood for twelve years and then went to pellets.

Pine burns easy - smells good - easy splitting. Oh, well - that's ancient history.

Lol. Yeah, I've got a lot of Oak, but I always find myself using Bradford Pear wood to get rid of it, but the birds spread their seeds everywhere so I'm always trying to kill them when they're thorny saplings. If you cut down a large Bradford you better kill that stump. Bradfords are like demons, they come back 7 fold if you let that stump and root system live.

I also have a decent amount of Pecan Tree wood. IMHO Pecan wood is the best wood for cooking with that I know of. Food just tastes better when using Pecan wood than with Oak, or other trees we have around here.

 

[oosik]

I DID have one small episode of chipping birch trees. At the far end of my driveway there was a stand of about a dozen birch. 4" to 5" on the butt - 50 to 55 feet tall.

I fell them all and chipped them. It's like chipping one long strand of spagetti. These were Paperbark Birch. Soft as butter. The chipper and tractor hardly even noticed they were being chipped.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I tell you what back in December I limbed up some Ceder trees that were getting out of hand, and I just threw all their branches in some woods that my aunt had logged a couple years ago. I think after I get my yard cleaned up I'm going to go back to the pile and make some Ceder chips. Ceder smells good, and bugs don't like to get in it. It great to use around your house in the shrubby and whatnot.

 

[Quickster2]

I just bought and used for 3.6 hours a WoodMaxx MX-8600 (6"). It runs behind my Kioti DK45 with 38 PTO HP. Extremely impressive machine. Made in the USA, Veteran owned, and after having used a manual feed and straight hydraulic systems in the past will say the hydrostatic feed system is a game changer. Chewed through oak, cherry, black locust, pine & willow no issues. Anything that will feed into the opening is chipped. I bought an 8" Dewalt chain saw for trimming anything last minute at the chipper.

I've owned a 8HP Simplicity Chipper in the past. Used it 2X and sold it in a garage sale. It did the job but the yield was pathetic for the amount of work it took.

Prior to this experience, I was a bit concerned about the wear and tear on my tractor with a PTO chipper. After talking to a respected Kioti dealer in Michigan there was no concern. They have a WoodMaxx WM-8H which they are very satisfied with. The input to the tractor with the chipper is much less than my haybine or baler. I ran at the 540 setting which is new ground for me as I never run my tractor at this RPM. No issues though.

I took advantage of a free shipping special and their Veteran discount. Ordered on a Wednesday and received the next Tuesday. Very satisfied with the quality of the machine and performance. To the OP good luck with your decision.

 

[steve tym]

When I had my manually fed chipper, when the blades were sharp, it would pull the wood right of your hands. When the blades were dull, you had to force feed. Now I have a hydraulic driven Woodland Mills. Great machine. I didn't want another engine to maintain, so a pto chipper it was. My tractor has 3 pto speeds, so I rarely run at WOT. Of course, higher RPM equals more HP.

 

[Quickster2]

Do any of y'all have experience with this chipper?

By the sound of that chipper, and struggling a bit even with that much HP, it must not have much of a rotor. My WoodMaxx MX-8600 never showed any sign similar to what is in the video. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of "input" to my tractor.