GarethM

I fitted LED's on the front and rear last year, just make sure to fit new plug and sockets to ensure everything stays watertight. As a bonus if I ever sell the tractor the old halogen lamps can be refitted in minutes, but it keeps the original tractor wiring harness unmodified. Picture was from late evening hedge chipping, but the amount of light is amazing and makes mowing grass late into the night much easier than the terrible halogens.

Personally I use a 20+ton splitter from rock machinery, its not perfect and can be a tediously slow even with an increased flow pump to improve the return cycle time. Doing around 100m3+ a year, but as a few of the other have said its about splitting rings of arisings instead of processing straight forestry timber, but at less than 2k delivered its paid for itself many time over. I had looked at the Trakmet LD 45 which is either 12.5 or 25 ton, excellent machine but at £4,250 ex vat for a machine which would need major modification to be usable seems very excessive for such a simple design. They wouldn't sell a stripped or PTO driven machine cheaper than the 3 phase version, as I would have to rip the 7.5kw motor off or have it connected to a tractor, so it meant buying a separate hydraulic power unit with reservoir and cooler at least another 2k but possibly more as anything larger than 6.5hp is probably better running on red diesel in the long term.

I've recently sold my Laimet HP21, it was a monstrous beast, 1200Kg+. It never created small chips, 4"x1/4" chips was the smallest I ever saw and it hated hedge thinning, branches and saplings. I did look at the costs of installing a smaller screw which was nearly 3k with delivery. Plus a new machine was in the region of 20k, I was offered a smaller PS-10 for approximately 3k. I'm currently heating the old farm house using logs and joinery waste, I've a second hand wood chip boiler that's under a tarpaulin, just waiting for a new shed to be built before being stripped and then installed. My plans are to supplementing my wood chip usage with extra from a friends tree surgery business, but really need a chipper on the tractor to get into the overgrown parts of the property, I can only get a tractor into some parts and wouldn't want to get someone else's expensive kit getting stuck. Plus I agree about the double handling, if it's felled I'd want it gone as I go. Rather than waiting before it could be burnt, the Welmac is a nice idea but everything I sell is cut and split before being barn dried. With all that greenery left in the bags, my customers would run a mile.

I've trawled the forum, possibly a little too much and I'm still undecided. I have a small family farm, and a tractor with around 50HP on 540RPM PTO, which makes sense to use its red diesel grunt & ability to go almost anywhere. Without going into all the details, I need to chip anything that cant be sold as firewood, so anything 4" and below. Its predominately going to be a mix of tree thinning, overgrown hedges & branches. But definitely need something that has a discharge nozzle that can be directed into the undergrowth and the bottom of hedgerows. I like the hydraulic feed system, but anything that's of any build quality fitted with hydraulics is way outside of my budget. I've seen a few second hand TP100 & Greenmech CS100 which seem reasonably priced at around 2-4k including VAT. Are these reasonable choices for second hand equipment or have you any other better suggestions ?. Many thanks, Gareth