Woodchippers: PTO vs gasoline driven

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I'm thinking about buy a wood chipper. I've cut down all these Bradford Pears and they suck, and are very limby. I want a chipper with its own engine as I not a fan of having my tractor sit for extended periods at WOT, (like with our log splitter) but I'm less of a fan of being aggravated by using underpowered equipment. If the chippers are rated to cut the same diameter is a gas power chipper slower to use than one being turned by a tractor with 60 PTO HP? I'm not a wood chipper expert, but from videos I've seem is most gas powered chippers seem to bog and feed slower, while requiring more user help to get it to feed than ones rated for the same size wood, but mounted to a 50+ HP tractor.

How well would a PTO driven chipper work if you ran it in 540E? Say a chipper that's your tractor's on the big end of what it's rated for?

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I'd think fine, that is what 540E is made for. Probably more productive than a gas powered unit. My tractors max torque is actually achieved at 1800RPM which is my 540E pto speed

 

[Chewwy]

60 hp will work fine for chipping up to 8 in material. I hate anything gas powered. I’ll go for a diesel powered PTO anytime.

I would get one with self feeding capability. Let it feed itself while you go and grab another piece.

 

[ericm979]

Chippers need lots of power. You could buy a used self-powered chipper but when I looked a few years ago manual feeding 25hp models that were totally beat up were going for $10k. You can get a good hydraulic feed PTO chipper for under $4k new from Woodmaxx or Woodland Mills.

If you maintain your tractor well it'll last many thousands of hours. The time spent turning the chipper will be tiny in comparison.

You can minimize chipper run time by stacking your piles with the butt ends all facing the same direction and already trimmed to go into the chipper. Then you can feed it as fast as it will eat. If you have to run around gathering stuff or trimming it while the chipper is running you are wasting chipping time.

 

[jjeff]

I own a woodmax 8" capacity has feed rollers, (not the newest model with hydraulic adjustable speed reversible rollers) you don't like delimbing? I have to delimb or Ill get a jamb. Owned for 5 yrs now, no major problems except first time operator errors. It's pto I run off my L4150 which easily chips it's largest capacity. Don't run to dry of wood through it, don't run roots/ stumps through it. It's a lot of hard work start to finish especially if your a one man operation.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

Do any of y'all have experience with this chipper?

 

[oldballs]

I don't have any experience with the Spitfire. But would still prefer my Woodland Mills WC68 even with only 19HP at the PTO.....bc of the hudraulic feed....the stop/reverse control. ..being a short (5'2") old man I think my WC68 is easier to feed. That's a tall young man in the video.

Most any tree work that one does is going to have limbs/logs too big for such a chipper. I think most of us report that we don't try to chip stuff bigger than 4-6 inches....unless they are in the tree business...imo.

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. I'm not sure what a "540E" is that you reference.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I don't have any experience with the Spitfire. But would still prefer my Woodland Mills WC68 even with only 19HP at the PTO.....bc of the hudraulic feed....the stop/reverse control. ..being a short (5'2") old man I think my WC68 is easier to feed. That's a tall young man in the video.

Most any tree work that one does is going to have limbs/logs too big for such a chipper. I think most of us report that we don't try to chip stuff bigger than 4-6 inches....unless they are in the tree business...imo.

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. I'm not sure what a "540E" is that you reference.

Well one of the big reasons I'm liking the Splitfire is it has a very broad PTO HP rating on the gearbox, that falls into my tractors range. I know Woodland Mills offers larger/more capable units than the WC68, and I would love to have one, but like with most things related to more HP the price starts to climb considerably. I do agree I would like a hydraulic feed, but the Splitfire claims its shoot design helps it self feed. They also say that on a more powerful tractor like mine that approaches it's PTO rating that the chipper can handle 5.5-6" pieces without an issue.

540E is a range that operates the PTO at 540 RPM, but at a noticeably lower engine speed than WOT. If you can use 540E instead of regular 540 it really does help save on fuel, plus you're not running your engine wide open, but if you're trying to do heavy work with the PTO it will start to bog the engine down as it's not making as much power operating at lower engine speeds.

 

[oosik]

I run a Wallenstein BX62S with my Kubota M6040. The chipper is rated for 6" wood - the M6040 has 56 pto hp. With this setup I can easily chip any trees on my property.

The chipper is a manual feed model. I have no need for hydraulic feed. I chip ONLY small pines ( 1" to 6" on the butt ). I do no pruning - just feed the tree into the chipper - butt first. A fresh cut pine - 6" on the butt - 24 - 30 feet long - that's about all this old fart can drag around.

I have no need for a larger chipper. Six inch butt cut pine is the biggest I chip. The ONLY reason I would want a larger chipper - if I were chipping hardwood trees. Larger chipper would have a heavier flywheel.

Every two or three years I have a three month long project using my chipper. I thin my pine stands and chip the trees I've thinned. Burning is a poor option here. Because wild fires are so prevalent here - I could only burn in the winter. Winter is when I'm holed up in the house - drinking hot chocolate and brandy.

Wallenstein is considered to be a superior chipper. I've used my 62S for thirteen years - no problems. For that matter - 13 years - 2500 to 3000 young pines chipped - the chipping blades are still sharp as razors.

I just might live long enough to rotate the cutting blades to their second sides.

 

[jjeff]

One thing is wood chips make great mulch around tree bases, for pathways, and certain plants in my experience. I've ran delimbed 15-20' Aspen and overgrown evergreen firs thru my wood max with 40 or so PTO horsepower on a 30+ yr old tractor was gratifyingly sufficient and adequate. Check flywheel or drum weight I believe it's called, on whatever chipper you get the bigger the better within reason I've been told. If you run a chipper id consider getting an overrun clutch off your tractors PTO stub. Good luck.

 

[Jkott]

Do any of y'all have experience with this chipper?

My Boomer 30 has half the horsepower of that Deere, and my Woodmaxx 8H would have not problem with those 1.5” sticks that almost stalled the deer.

It’s looks neat that you don’t have to trim off all the branches, but most of the pines, alders, birch and poplar branches I chip I can leave long enough that I really don’t think I can lift them into this thing. I just have to drag it close enough to get the hydraulic roller to grab it.

I can see why he suggests wiring an estop button into the seat safety (not sure how that kills it, because the seat safety isn’t used when in neutral and parking brake is on). There may be no stopping a big branch after it starts feeding. Hopefully it doesn’t catch on you. I’ve always been a big fan of hydraulic infeeds that have stop bars around the intake.

 

[AirOpsMgr]

FWIW, I recently bought the Woodland Mills WC88 for my 39.3 PTO rated tractor (50.3 HP engine). Stupid fast shipping by the way, had it within 1 week of my order date.

I've run the chipper at multiple speeds just to see how it reacts; Running in the 540e, you can hear that it's not spinning at full speed but still eats everything I feed it up to 4" without issue, you can hear it slow down a bit if chomping on a continuous length of 4" hardwood, but it doesn't bog down to the point of stopping the chipperbor stalling the tractor, but noticeable nonetheless.

Hardwoods above 4" is where I can tell it's starting to bog, especially on long pieces, so I bump the tach up to full PTO for the bigger/longer/harder stuff.

The biggest diameter I've run through it at 540e was 6" pine, and while not the best example, it still ate shorter lengths without bogging down too much at 540e.

In short, if trying to run at lower PTO RPMs, it's gonna boil down to type of wood, length and "your feel" for how the chipper is handling the volume.

Hope that makes sense, a lot of variables involved, but best I could describe it.

 

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I went ahead and bought this one. Got it for $1,899 before tax.

BIGBEAR POWER Tornadic 5 in. 15 HP Gas Powered Commercial Chipper Shredder, Self Feeding, Tow Package, Electric Start BBC52 - The Home Depot

Add an elegant look to your living space with this amazing Unbranded 17-Bigbear Power Tornadic Gas Powered Commercial Chipper Shredder Self Feeding Tow Package Electric Start.

www.homedepot.com

It looks like a very nice unit for the price, just not much info online about it. I'm thinking this is a pretty new company. It's gas powered by a 500 cc single cylinder engine, and is rated at 15 HP, and 5" diameter of wood. Really anything that big is firewood for me, unless it's pine or something similar. I like that it's rated for highway towing, and the 5 year warranty on it is hard to beat. I just hope they stay in business. All for purchases like this I generally prefer not to use large retailers like HD or Lowes, but rather smaller businesses and tractor dealerships, but hopefully this works out well.


EDIT: BTW thanks for all y'all suggestions. I think a tractor unit with a hydraulic feeder would have been cooler/funner, and in some scenarios preferable, and more convenient, but at the same time I think this thing should be all the chipper I need, and for much less than most of the tractor units I saw rated for 5" or more, with a gearbox rated to handle 60+ PTO HP. I will say those Nova Tractor units looked like pretty good values, but they say they're out of stock on the units I was looking at that had the hydraulic feeder unit June which I need to get my yard cleaned up before the grass starts to take off and demand cutting every 2 weeks. Plus this will most certainly save on fuel costs. These newer emissions tractors drink fuel 2x's or more faster than they did back in the day. I need to get my old Ford 861 diesel back up and working, or maybe my parents old Farmall M. Even my parents FarmTrac 665's use way less fuel than my 18 JD 5075E.

 

[oosik]

I wish when we were burning wood - long ago - there was something other than pine for us to compare. All I have here is 80 acres of pine. We burned wood for twelve years and then went to pellets.

Pine burns easy - smells good - easy splitting. Oh, well - that's ancient history.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I wish when we were burning wood - long ago - there was something other than pine for us to compare. All I have here is 80 acres of pine. We burned wood for twelve years and then went to pellets.

Pine burns easy - smells good - easy splitting. Oh, well - that's ancient history.

Lol. Yeah, I've got a lot of Oak, but I always find myself using Bradford Pear wood to get rid of it, but the birds spread their seeds everywhere so I'm always trying to kill them when they're thorny saplings. If you cut down a large Bradford you better kill that stump. Bradfords are like demons, they come back 7 fold if you let that stump and root system live.

I also have a decent amount of Pecan Tree wood. IMHO Pecan wood is the best wood for cooking with that I know of. Food just tastes better when using Pecan wood than with Oak, or other trees we have around here.

 

[oosik]

I DID have one small episode of chipping birch trees. At the far end of my driveway there was a stand of about a dozen birch. 4" to 5" on the butt - 50 to 55 feet tall.

I fell them all and chipped them. It's like chipping one long strand of spagetti. These were Paperbark Birch. Soft as butter. The chipper and tractor hardly even noticed they were being chipped.

 

[LightningCamaroGuy]

I tell you what back in December I limbed up some Ceder trees that were getting out of hand, and I just threw all their branches in some woods that my aunt had logged a couple years ago. I think after I get my yard cleaned up I'm going to go back to the pile and make some Ceder chips. Ceder smells good, and bugs don't like to get in it. It great to use around your house in the shrubby and whatnot.

 

[Quickster2]

I just bought and used for 3.6 hours a WoodMaxx MX-8600 (6"). It runs behind my Kioti DK45 with 38 PTO HP. Extremely impressive machine. Made in the USA, Veteran owned, and after having used a manual feed and straight hydraulic systems in the past will say the hydrostatic feed system is a game changer. Chewed through oak, cherry, black locust, pine & willow no issues. Anything that will feed into the opening is chipped. I bought an 8" Dewalt chain saw for trimming anything last minute at the chipper.

I've owned a 8HP Simplicity Chipper in the past. Used it 2X and sold it in a garage sale. It did the job but the yield was pathetic for the amount of work it took.

Prior to this experience, I was a bit concerned about the wear and tear on my tractor with a PTO chipper. After talking to a respected Kioti dealer in Michigan there was no concern. They have a WoodMaxx WM-8H which they are very satisfied with. The input to the tractor with the chipper is much less than my haybine or baler. I ran at the 540 setting which is new ground for me as I never run my tractor at this RPM. No issues though.

I took advantage of a free shipping special and their Veteran discount. Ordered on a Wednesday and received the next Tuesday. Very satisfied with the quality of the machine and performance. To the OP good luck with your decision.

 

[steve tym]

When I had my manually fed chipper, when the blades were sharp, it would pull the wood right of your hands. When the blades were dull, you had to force feed. Now I have a hydraulic driven Woodland Mills. Great machine. I didn't want another engine to maintain, so a pto chipper it was. My tractor has 3 pto speeds, so I rarely run at WOT. Of course, higher RPM equals more HP.

 

[Quickster2]

Do any of y'all have experience with this chipper?

By the sound of that chipper, and struggling a bit even with that much HP, it must not have much of a rotor. My WoodMaxx MX-8600 never showed any sign similar to what is in the video. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of "input" to my tractor.