GA Groundcare

Build quality wise not really much wrong with them but not a chipper for a tree surgeon.

We have heard rumours of a MK3 Quad Chip. How far along that is, we don’t know.

Don't quote us.... But in the diesel GreenMech range the following will probably happen. Arborist / ArbTrak 150 34hp turbo diesel, Arborist / Arbtrak 200 45hp turbo diesel, SafeTrak will continue to be built until Summer 2020 or until they run out of stocked engines. From that point on, the Arborist 150 will only be available in 25/26hp. An option that is already available and sold largely in Europe. The ArbTrak 150 may get discontinued due to the Evo 165 on tracks now available. Arborist / ArbTrak 200, and all SafeTrak / SureTrak models will go Tier V and have clean burn / DPF fitted. The price on those will be going up due to the cost of engines. That's across the board no matter what make of chipper you purchase. The Evo models are already compliant so no change in that range. As the Arborist 150 34hp already has a wet weight of 749kg, building it with clean burn /DPF will tip the scales over 750kg and it'll price itself out of the market to many. Seriously though, if anyone is thinking of changing a larger road tow or tracked machine in the next 6 months I would get on and get the wheels in motion. Things can be done down the finance route and money is pretty cheap at the moment. Financing a pre DPF 2019 / early 2020 SafeTrak 19-28 will probably be in the region of an outright purchase on a Tier 5 SafeTrak 19-28....

Its more in the design of the heavier flywheel than just a heavy flywheel. Take the 8" petrol Bearcat petrol chipper for example (or any of the larger Bearcat chippers). Massive flywheel, supposed to be a 8" capacity, 20hp petrol engine. Relies on the flywheel inertia to keep going. End result is feed it more than 4" branch and once the flywheel slows down it takes about three days to get back up to speed. There is obviously parameters and a carefully calculated engine hp / torque, pulley gearing size and flywheel weight to get right.

Go GreenMech ? Or, at least get a demo!

Charles (ArbRep) I believe has shut the business and gone back to South Africa. TH White are the UK importer for Jensen. Bill Johnson heads up their import side. Where in the UK are you?

From the GM range. The Arborist 200. 45hp, 8” x 12” infeed. Weighing in 1200kg ish. It has a retail of £22,650 ex vat. It’ll be going up soon due to engine cost increases from emissions.

GM went through many scraped flywheel designs and the Evo was launched around a year after they initially planned. So it was no easy step to get to where the Evo is today. Innovation takes time. Hindsight is easy ? Yes, we understand what they’ve learnt through the Evo on flywheel design is going to be filtered through the range in due course. The SafeTrak and or the SureTrak is hands down the best embankment *tracking* chipper. Don’t think you can find an operator who can say it isn’t... But people just want that but more throughput these days. A swanky, higher performance flywheel in that machine would be the icing on the cake ?

One thing on GreenMechs agenda with the Evo 165 was to recycle the chip around the chamber less. If you imagine the timber enters at 6 o clock with the flywheel spinning counter clockwise (as stood from the infeed) and the chipped material exits at 12 o clock (approx). However, on older wood chippers with fairly basic X style paddle designs the chip wont always exit on its initial half a counter clockwise turn. The chip will be recycled around the flywheel / chamber and then be discharged at some point. (very hard to tell exactly) Being able to feed material in, as I am sure you know is all about getting the material out. The quicker it can be discharged with as little recycling as possible the more efficient the chipper is. Stress control kicking in less etc etc. The Evo flywheel has been in the region of three years in development. We know that older GreenMech 6" machines, TimberWolf TW150's and such like use the air that the flywheel paddles create to blow the chip out the discharge chute into the back of your wagon. The new Evo flywheel design uses the paddles to fling / throw the chip at a very high velocity. As proved in the video I posted a few pages ago. Whether you're a GreenMech fan or not, there is no denying that the Evo chip discharge is impressive.

Not sure if there is any physical engine differences in the old 34/35hp V1505 and the latest 25hp V1505.

Ours had a brand new turbo on purchasing it (with receipts)

On the 2.4 TDCI?

We are a Husqvarna dealer and we use a 135 for cutting up firewood for our heating system. Works fine ?

Imagine trying to deal with your Briggs engine dealer on the issues you had with a "tuned" engine.... Chances are you'd be footing the invoice on the repairs. When out of warranty then fair game. We have just had our Puma Defender remapped from 122hp to 165hp (ish). It has made all the difference when on heavy towing. The itch for 200hp is now strong ?

Ah sorry. For some reason thought you were referring to a turn table on tracks.

When your partner paints as a hobby and you commission her to do a painting for the office wall...

It’s not a standard option available currently. I would imagine they could produce one, whether there is enough call to officially make one and put it in the price list is another question all together. The Quad Trak 160 is a great tool, the Swiss Army knife of chippers. But it is sold in lowish numbers.

Hard to say without knowing his overhead costs. The lads will probably only see the "I can make another £30 + an hour doing it on my own" In our workshops they are paid in the region of that rate, (slightly higher) and we charge out at £45 per hour plus vat. However not very often every hour of said day is chargeable, the employed person is paid for all of the day, the employed person only works 11 months of a 12 month year, they get a pension, fuel coverage to - from home, then your business rates, premises lease, van lease and all your insurances. And that largely all needs to come out of the gross profit on labour. The gross profit margin is very quickly reduced to very little.

Tracked EVO 165....

Agreed. It will indeed.

Going forward, anything new over 25hp will require a DPF and other “cleaner burn” add ons making your compliant 34hp engine in the region of £3,000 - £4,000 more expensive. That’ll tip your average new 6” machine over £20,000 net ex vat. The Evo 165 has the new, legislation compliant 25hp Kubota V1505 engine. It doesn’t need all the clean burn stuff which keeps the cost down. The new flywheel in the Evo weighs twice what the Arborist range (130/150/150p) weighs, recycles the chip less around the flywheel and throws it better too. The r&d they’ve put into that is impressive. Something like a 8” machine and larger equipment will need all the clean burn and the prices of that equipment will unfortunately be more expensive.

That’s diesel. The new Kubota V1505 25hp. Granted it was a straight piece. We didn’t take the video, the customer sent it to us whilst he had it on demo. As videos were being asked for felt it was at least worth posting. The Evo 165 has horizontal rollers. It is definitely aggressive on pulling the material in ?

Probably just the noise of the flywheel / the air it creates.

This customer just chopped his 2017 Arb 150p out for an EVO 165 with us. And loves it. IMG_8915.MP4

You're kind of comparing a 7.5" 37hp chipper to a 6" 26hp chipper.... The Evo 165 is compliant with all the latest / forthcoming regulations. The 540 is 37hp? On any new models they will either need to be reduced to 26hp or have DPF etc adding an additional 3-4k on engine cost...?