Another Firewood Processor

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

Greetings Jonix,

I am away for the weekend so I don't have any of my hydraulic calculations.

I would start a new post for your issue in the hydraulics section of the forum.

I would post as much information as you can about the machine. Is it purchased or home made? Pump, motor, and cylinder specifications. For pumps include motor rpm and pump displacement. Motors will need to know displacement. Cylinders will need to know diameter.

Other helpful information would be hydraulic reservoir size, hydraulic line diameter for the areas your having problems with. Maybe valve flow ratings.

5000 psi sounds a bit scarry. A video might help but we don't want to see you bend up your machine or anything.

I will try to look into this later tomorrow when I'm back home.

Good luck!

 

[jonix]

Ok,

I thank you for the help that you can give!

It´s a home made purchase firewood processor seriously, it is a project with some nice guys that have a shop, and i was able to 3d design the machine..so, we go for it..

I can only go to their shop on Monday, and i´m gonna try to post as much information as i can get..!!!
I´m gonna take some pics to..!

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

The two 50 lts/min (13.2GPM) and 66 lts/min (17.4 GPM) gear pumps exceed 5000 PSI (!!!!) and still not achieve the 10 cm (3.9" that should develop 30.4 tons @ 5000 PSI) diameter piston to split eucalyptus with a 400 mm (15.75") diameter into my 8 edges knife ..can anyone help me with this? (a picture of the splitter cylinder and wedge would be helpful)

And why the F11-005 PARKER (.305 CI / revolution) motor with 34 Lts/min (8.98 GPM) dedicated pump can not get a decent cut at 150 bar (2,175 PSI)? ( a 3/8 pitch chain with a 7 teeth sprocket and a set of pulleys to double speed).. (Saw motor should run at 7200 RPM with the given information developing 100 in/lb of torque and 5.7 HP. Chain should run at 3150 ft/min)

The system has a 18 KW (24 Hp) electric three phase motor with 4 pumps (2 for splitting, 1 for the saw and saw piston, and 1 for log conveyor, log feeder, clamp, log lenght stopper, etc...) what is wrong with this? something has to be wrong... (Need information about how the two pumps are used for splitting)

I can get you much more information and a video of what is happen (all the machine is near to break and still not splitting the wood!!!) if you need/want to see that...

thanks in advance..and i hope anyone helps me, because here in portugal the season is about to begin, and i have no firewood drying...

I made notes in red. Changed units for those of us not used to metric. I would say that we really need information about how the two pumps are used to split. We need pictures of the wedge to see how the log will spread out as it is split. Is the wood green or is it dried out? I read that eucalyptus is more difficult to split when dry.

Off hand I would think the splitter would work at 30 tons but it all might depend on the wedge design. Also if there is anything binding in the splitter travel.
The saw seems a bit slow to me. You have decent torque but I would think you'd want your chain speed to be around 5000 ft/min. It could be as simple as changing to an 11 tooth sprocket if one is available.

My previous comments still stand, I would gather additional information and start a new thread for this in the hydraulics or build it yourself section. Feel free to post a link to it here if you wish.

 

[SpringHollow]

If the knife edges are not staggered, I would not be surprised if there was difficulty in splitting. And just because the pumps are rated for 5000 psi does not mean that is the pressure they are generating. There could be a bypass at a lower pressure than that.

Ken

 

[jonix]

Thanks again!

I open a new thread: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/hydraulics/340703-firewood-processor-help.html#post4182843

 

[mx842]

You may have already posted this but if you did I missed it but what are the sizes of the pieces you used to make up that wedge? What is the overall height and width of the finished wedge?

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

I don't know that I've really spelled out what we did since the design change moving away from the box.
Dimensioned images of the wedges are attached. The main wedge is 28" tall.





Status update: We got our last load of steel today. Next up, mounting the motors and pumps, mounting the valves, purchasing and running all of the hydraulic lines. Still need to fab the hydraulic tank too.

Some of the steel is to build the out feed flipper tray to split output between 2 pallets.

We have a motor for the out feed convener coming as well.

 

[mx842]

I don't know that I've really spelled out what we did since the design change moving away from the box.
Dimensioned images of the wedges are attached. The main wedge is 28" tall.

View attachment 432786

View attachment 432787

Status update: We got our last load of steel today. Next up, mounting the motors and pumps, mounting the valves, purchasing and running all of the hydraulic lines. Still need to fab the hydraulic tank too.

Some of the steel is to build the out feed flipper tray to split output between 2 pallets.

We have a motor for the out feed convener coming as well.

Thanks that is very helpful. I'm still gathering pieces and parts but I would like to start work on some of the parts that I have pieces for like the wedge, hydraulic tank, fuel cell, along with some other stuff like brackets for the pumps and motors. I got rained out the other day and I decided to start working on the wedge. I have a piece of plate that is 24" long by 18" wide and 1 1/4" thick that I was going to cut up and make the main piece out of but decided to wait until I could check some other wedge designs to get some measurements off of before I cut up this nice piece of plate. I'm planing on hopefully being able to get two out of it and maybe playing around with another configuration to see what else I could come up with.

I wonder how this design will work out with larger wood.....say like 36" or more? Most of the wood I have is 18" to 26" or so but I do have some really big stuff on the ground and I also have several really large oaks that are dying and will have to be cut down soon.

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

More questions posted to the associated hydraulics thread.

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

I wonder how this design will work out with larger wood.....say like 36" or more? Most of the wood I have is 18" to 26" or so but I do have some really big stuff on the ground and I also have several really large oaks that are dying and will have to be cut down soon.

Sorry for the late reply, Are you asking about our exact size and design or the design principal beefed up and made larger? We are already a bit scared as to what this thing might do to the beam with the wedge sitting 24+ inches above the beam. It is one big lever! I would not want to put anything larger on ours unless we boxed in the beam on both sides. Maybe also having a solid attachment point above the wedge that really helps to distribute the load.
Note: We haven't run the machine yet. Maybe I'm overly cautious, I have not had any structural calculations run on the frame. Just asked some people that said, "Yeah that should be good"

Status update:


We got the infeed bars, sprockets, and chain on


Mounted the hydraulic motor that will drive the infeed. Set it up on a pivot and tensioned it with a turnbuckle down to the frame.


Welded the plates that will hold the hydraulic valves.