Crane fed chippers and brashy material

[John Shutler]

25 minutes ago, Toxteth O,Grady said:

It was on a 130hp so my thought were it needed a bit more . As for a birds nest It was pulled apart with a 14 tonner and dropped by the infeed , might seem like double handling but deadlines for felling and all that . 

In hind sight I would have got this one in from the off , filled the first artic in 20 minutes 

Maybe a bit more hp needed then, I fill my 12 tonne grain trailer with silage sides on in about 40 mins. Conditions of the blades make a huge difference but they are so cheap there should be no excuse to allow them to affect productivity 

[Tom D]

Downforce on the rollers is important for brash material, AC Price do an add on which really helps, so you can lift the roller up to get it in and then crush it down too. Leylandii has never been a problem and usually goes through without needing the downforce. Hawthorn and other ball shaped shrubs are more tricky.  One things for sure any crane fed chipper is way quicker than hand feeding.

 

[Spruced]

In fairness that's great feedback, it seems that the same problems arise whether hand fed or crane fed, i.e. curvy branches, nesting of input material and presentation of the material.

 

I'm currently using a Farmi 260 with a crane on the back of a T172 and whilst it does the fuelwood chipping perfectly which is about 50% of my chipping business even with a hydraulic infeed conveyor it just isn't designed for anything brashy for two main reasons 1. Getting the feed rollers to grab a clump is difficult 2. The very soft and springy ends of the branches wrap around the feed rollers requiring backing out the material completely. Thus I end up back on the hand fed Loma mulcher for the other 50% of the chipping jobs.

 

And shamefully I have to admit I'd prefer to be sitting in the tractor cab for a day especially given the fact that it seems to be getting wetter and colder each winter. And the piles of Leylandii aren't getting smaller.

 

 

Edited April 1, 2018 by Spruced
Left something out

[s o c]

That’s some tractor to have running what is essentially (no offense meant to farmi) an entry level fuelwood chipper.

those Farmis are pretty poor at Leylandis or brashly stuff, it’s really not what they are designed for.

with 170 horsepower plus ,you have a wide choice of chippers to choose from.

depends on budget , size and type of jobs available to make it viable.

we run a crane fed Jensen on a valtra/ roofmount botex set-up ( Tom d,s old tractor)  it has its limits but it allows us to take on good size jobs with a small crew without anybody being over worked. Also it doesn’t take a huge nod to make it worthwhile. We also use a mini-digger to handball stuff to within reach of the crane on tight sites. 

As others have said , how it’s prepared is the key, the more timber going in with the brash the better chance of the rollers pulling it in.

It takes a bit of trial and error to get the preparation right (in the beginning we tended to over- trim). Also it takes a while to get efficient at feeding the chipper 

[dent]

What are you coming from to compare it to have you been hand feeding ?? What do you mean by large ?? Whole tree chipper ??

 

Its either vermeer or bandit put cranes or there tracked chippers would that be something worth looking into for you as that might give a feed characteristic more like you are used to rather than the tractor mounted machines designed with biomass production in mind ??  Obviously the bandits go to 36inch capacity so a brute of a machine

[Spruced]

Yep, the Farmi are an entry level chipper, the tractor pulls a low loader and doubles as the chipper mount but you're right, it's a lot of horsepower for a 10 inch chipper. The intention is to move up to a proper chipper in due course, just want to make sure that I get one which will cover both clean fuel wood and also the arb arisings.

 

In research mode at the moment and for a change might actually research first and then buy rather than the other way around.

 

The trimming point is very valid, there's the world of difference between prepping for a hand fed chipper and a crane fed one.

[Gray git]

Dealing with conifer and stringy material or rather not is why I've just traded in my farmi for a schliesing 550 which still produces quite a nice chip and can be grab fed as the hopper is massive and open at the top.
170hp will happily run a 400 series heizohack which will happily do both jobs your asking from it and are a very simple machine compared to the Dutch dragon chippers and a lot cheaper to run.
If your doing a lot of brash it would be worth looking at changing your grab to one without the bottom plates in as you'll pick up less contamination from the ground and not jam the grab anymore with bits getting stuck as you try and open it.
Wilsons will be offering a quick change plate soon so you'll be able to swap grabs in a few minutes to suit what your doing.

[Spruced]

Great idea keeping the bottom plates of the grab open, hadn't considered the benefit of that. I do pick up a good bit of soil to the detriment of the blades so anything to reduce that would be very helpful. Chances are high I'll end up going for the Heizohack 400 series.

[s o c]

Yes. Open grab is a must ?

[LR90]

This is my Jensen 141 with Botex 360 crane.  As the fly wheel is at 90deg to the material coming in and the rollers closer to the flywheel it chips a lot better than the  farmi type chipper I had before.  especially on conifer and whippy material more related to arb work.      Needs a few more mods but working well    would like a heizo in future for bigger capacity.