T-Rex - my towable wood chipper

[ruxu]

Finally!
I got my wood chipper made ready - although I am retired it took me over 13 months. The whole project started from this



and ended up with this towable hydraulic feed chipper



Initially I made the chipper with manual feed but first tests showed that it did not work very well so I decided to redesign it to hydraulic feed. As I had to buy the hydraulic parts as new the whole project budget was doubled.

The chipper is powered by a 16hp Briggs&Stratton cast iron engine from 1979. The axle and frame is from a old homemade trailer from 1980. The chipping wheel diameter is 500mm and thickness 20mm and fitted with two chipping blades. The weight is about 32 kg and it rotates at 1 300 rpm. The engine axle has a centrifugal clutch with two V-belt groves with diameter 90mm. The chipping wheel pulley diameter is 180mm. The hydraulic pump with a flow of 7,4 L/min. is also driven from the chipping wheel axle.

The infeed rollers are driven by 250ccm gerotor motors. The direction of the motors are controlled by two solenoid valves. A flow divider is also fitted to make it possible to adjust the infeed roller speed. Additionally an Arduino microcontroller is via an inductive sensor fitted to read the chipper wheel speed. If too heavy load is applied and the chipper wheel speed drops below a set rpm value the microcontoller cuts voltage to the infeed roller solenoids until the chipper wheel gains enough rpm again. The chipper is capable to chip wood up to a diameter of 125mm.

The feed table edge to indeed rollers is 1 250mm to meet CE safety regulations. An infeed cutoff bar is fitted around the feed table edges. Emergency stop switches are fitted above the infeed and on the control panel. The chipper wheel housing cover is also fitted with a safety switch.

The towable chipper trailer base is re-registered as a towable machine and it is now allowed to tow it on public roads. The total weight of the chipper is 380kg.

Here are some additional pictures taken during the project.