log splitter valve

[4570Man]

My advice is to ditch the vertical/horizontal and go with a horizontal only with a 4 way in the end of the beam. My days of sitting on a round to split wood and having to throw every piece out on the way are over. And unless you want a splitter that’s on par with a splitting maul go with a 5” bore cylinder or bump the pressure WAY up. A 3.5 cylinder at 2500 psi is practically useless for splitting wood.

 

[LD1]

4" cylinder is ok. Splits 90% of what I throw on it.

Dad has a 4.5" cylinder.....and will split ANYTHING we have.

The cost of going bigger (power) is speed goes down in direct proportion.

I completely understand the want for a vertical splitter. Sometimes the rounds are just too big to want to handle. Vertical is a must for that. However, when dealing with the smaller stuff, 12" or 10" rounds....Id much much rather stand up and split on a horizontal beam.

I personally think you are overthinking this valve thing. And over-complicating it with spring mechanisms. And the ONLY thing you are gaining is the ability to simply "let-off" the valve , vs simply reverse its direction and let the detent do its thing (like 99% of splitters out there today).

BUT......since you are running off tractor hydraulics.....at a fixed GPM.....you should REALLY look into a regen valve to increase the cycle time dramatically. Prince Lsr3060

 

[jonsstihl]

I'm currently running a 3.5" cylinder with 2000psi on the tractor and somewhere around 6gpm on my b7800 and it does the job. It is slow but fast enough not to get too tired keeping up with the thing. It does stall in wood fairly often but moving the round around and finding the week spot usually works. hence the desire to move up to the 4" cylinder and the tractor will soon be upgraded to a l6060 with 9.4 gpm of flow. I will look into the ls3060. my experience with regen on my loader valve is that it actually slows the cycle down. There is no lag when the cylinder reverses direction on my current splitter.

 

[LD1]

I'm currently running a 3.5" cylinder with 2000psi on the tractor and somewhere around 6gpm on my b7800 and it does the job. It is slow but fast enough not to get too tired keeping up with the thing. It does stall in wood fairly often but moving the round around and finding the week spot usually works. hence the desire to move up to the 4" cylinder and the tractor will soon be upgraded to a l6060 with 9.4 gpm of flow. I will look into the ls3060. my experience with regen on my loader valve is that it actually slows the cycle down. There is no lag when the cylinder reverses direction on my current splitter.

Regen will NOT slow it down.

At 9GPM......a 4" bore cylinder and 2" diameter rod will extend at 2.8" per second and retract at 3.7" per second.

In rapid mode.....same cylinder would now extend at 11" per second. (counting inefficiency and friction....7-8" per second is probably more realistic)

So kinda like a two stage pump. You can go real fast until you hit the wood. Dont have to suffer through the slow wait time until the wedge contacts the piece. Most people I have heard that use a 3PH splitter....going to the rapid extend valve is the best thing they have ever done.

As it pertains to the loader....regen isnt to make dumping faster. Its to keep the cylinder full of oil when dumping a heavy load. When dumping, gravity acts to extend the cylinder FASTER than your tractor can pump the cylinder full....thus it sucks air in. Ever go dump a load, then immediatly try to back drag and it acts like the bucket just flops around.....thats because you sucked air in. That dont happen with regen.

Also, i think you mentioned in your previous post wanting a 30" stroke? What length wood are you splitting? Feeding a boiler? 24" stroke is plenty for most people.

 

[jonsstihl]

Thanks for the discussion, I am learning things. I was under the impression regen was to stop the flopping around of a bucket when dumped with a load in it. But I can't image the use of regen on a splitter, there is no load that is acting on the wedge faster than the hydraulics can compensate for.

In my mind 10 gpm is 10 gpm you can't make a valve that will turn 10 gpm into 20 gpm to increase speed. I thought these two speed valves were a marketing gimmick. I'm sure it has to do with flow and pressure so it reduces the pressure so the flow can increase but then the hose sizes probably need to be taken into consideration.

I hate wasting wood so sometimes I end up splitting the root flare which is cut around 19-20 inches but because of the shape, ends up needing to be put into the splitter at an angle so it ends up being 25-30 inches long.

 

[jonsstihl]

just looked into the valve but with 9.4 gpm on my next tractor I am almost two times over the max gpm of the valve

 

[jonsstihl]

just found another post explaining the regen valve. so you end up using the oil from the rod end to supplement the oil going to the base but you have less pressure but more flow. normally the oil from the rod end would just go to the tank.

 

[jonsstihl]

so what I thought was the regen dump circuit on my loader is actually the regular dump circuit and turns out I've been using the regen circuit all along and it does make it faster.

 

[jonsstihl]

anyone with the regen splitter valve. Can you tell if the rapid extend is the first soft detent or the second one.

 

[LD1]

Seems you have regen figured out now. You are correct.

Basically presssure is applied to BOTH ports. But since piston area is different, the rod still extends.

You will extend with the speed and power as if the cylinder was only the diameter of the rod. So a 4" cylinder with a 2" rod...in regen mode the cylinder would extend with the speed and power that a 2" bore cylinder would. Since that is effectively the only area you are pushing on with pressure. The area of the piston outside the rod diameter cancels out.

Also keep in mind 2 things.
1. valve ratings are conservative. Alot has to do with heat generation. With the cooling and capacity of the GL6060, not really an issue.
2. that 9.4gpm flow rating is at full RPM, dial it back to 1500 and let the tractor take it easy