New SpeedPro Kinetic Log Splitter from TSC...

[schaaed1]

I messed around some more with my calculations comparing the SS and speedpro. I got the numbers to work out to 16 tons on the SS and 28 on the Speedpro using the same assumptions. I'm surprised Speedpro felt compelled to go for 28 tons when SS has a long history at 16 tons. The forces on the gear teeth are insane at 28 tons combined with a pinion speed that is to high its just asking for disaster.

That's closer to what I would have expected!! And those numbers would make sense with my analogy of running an Explorer into a brick wall at 70mph or the Expedition at 35mph.

I really wonder how many problems these units would have had ... if they were geared correctly? No different than anyhting else ... you start jacking up force, components will start breaking. If I threw a blower/supercharger on the wife's grocery getter, without changing any stock internal engine parts, it aint gonna last (but might be fun while it did, lol).

After all that ranting...I still don't, for the most part, regret buying this thing. The ability to split wood with the speed of a kinetic splitter, and saving a grand, still outweighs the issues. Just wish I didn't feel so much like a big furry domesticated rodent.

Get it geared down ... and I really think you will be fine. I still think you could turn the original clutch pulley down (making it into a stud shaft), and bore out a smaller pulley to fit. If that doesn't work, have someone weld the smaller pulley to the clutch face (old pulley ground off).

Also, interesting that the Speeco folks that were coming on here have gotten really, really quiet.:confused2: I wonder what's up with that? Maybe they actually tested the new racks and they are still failing? Maybe they are finally realizing that they need to slow things down? Hmmm ... if you think about it ... when we really started talking about the speed being the underlying issue, is about the time they stopped posting. Coincidence??

 

[ziggo_2]

I hate to become what we here on this speedpro thread have been battling for so long. I really hate to "bash" the splitter, and it's manufacturer, that I have been defending for all this time. I also know that the one thing about "customer service" that pixxes most "customers" off is a lack of personal contact. The customer needs and deserves to be "informed" as to what is happening to rectify there problems.

I sometimes think that most of us here on this thread are using each other as a "support group". It lets us know that we are not alone in our problems and issues. Shxx, we've gone so far as to pretty much fix the dang things ourselves!

With the help from some friends here on this thread, I've got a few good ideas (such as fabricating a "bolt on cross bracket" with a nut welded in the center of it to hold the adjusting bolt for a cam-stop, for one...and a smaller clutch pulley for another) that I think will definately improve this machine. I'm still just waiting to see just how far SpeeCo is going to go before I drop any more of my cash on the project. I wish they would hurry up and show there hand.

If I had the extra grand to spend on an SS, I might have done things different. Like throwing a big half split piece of green pin oak flat side down in the cradle...SIDEWAYS! Crank the motor to wfo and keep slamming it until this thing self destructs. After watching this thing violently disengage on a knotted piece of black walnut 8-10 times in a row, I don't think it would take too awfull long to see parts fly. But you know what, it would have been nice for all of us if SpeeCo would have done something like this BEFORE they sold them to us!

After all that ranting...I still don't, for the most part, regret buying this thing. The ability to split wood with the speed of a kinetic splitter, and saving a grand, still outweighs the issues. Just wish I didn't feel so much like a big furry domesticated rodent.

K...I'm done being a "SpeedPro Basher" !!! Today's project...bending the "factory installed non-adjustable" cam-stop forward just a little bit. Oh yeah, and then split another cord of wood too!

I dont have a speedpro so i cant fully understand your frustrations....but, I offer my woodpile to you to take out those frustrations.

I think its very suspicious that speeco is very hush hush now....like I said before you guys are better off fixing it yourselfs although id wait till they give you some free parts. if you can wait that long.

 

[philwillmt]

I dont have a speedpro so i cant fully understand your frustrations....but, I offer my woodpile to you to take out those frustrations.

I think its very suspicious that speeco is very hush hush now....like I said before you guys are better off fixing it yourselfs although id wait till they give you some free parts. if you can wait that long.

Took my splitter over to a neighbors house today to split some wood for him. After splitting for a few minutes the ram stopped in a knotty piece of pine, and the flywheels never sped back up. Upon investigation, found that the mounting bolt and key to the clutch were gone! Luckily I found the key on the ground, and was able to get a bolt that worked from my neighbor to get it going again. I'm tired of babying this machine...seems there's always something going wrong. I'm on the verge of taking it back to TSC for a full refund! SpeeCo needs to get their act together!

 

[ksfastman]

Speedpro

It's obvious there are a bunch of issues, but if you're going to keep them...it seems the rack engagement/gear depth mesh is the first place to start. Wish Speedco would get going on this, because I really want one of these!

 

[philwillmt]

It's obvious there are a bunch of issues, but if you're going to keep them...it seems the rack engagement/gear depth mesh is the first place to start. Wish Speedco would get going on this, because I really want one of these!

I forgot to mention that when I went to hook up my splitter to my 2" trailer ball for the first time today that it would not go on. Had to back the lock nut on the bottom of the coupler nearly all the way off and lube everything up before I could get the latch closed. It appears that the piece that snugs up under the bottom of the trailer ball may be too long. Even with the lock nut almost all the way off it was very hard to close the latch. I think SpeeCo may have been in too big of a hurry to get these splitters out on the market and were willing to sacrifice quality in an effort to get their share of the inertia splitter market. They may find themselves spending a lot of time trying to rebuild their reputation with the rest of their products if things don't change with the way they are handling the SpeedPro issues!

 

[CUCV]

Closer to an Explorer full of passengers at 30mph vs a Explorer with just a driver at 42mph...:msp_tongue:

The SS "special edition" with 100lb flywheels would be the Expedition.

I think the speed thing can be solve very easy by just running it slower or buying a clutch from SS, it would take to much time to turn down the pulley IMO.

That's closer to what I would have expected!! And those numbers would make sense with my analogy of running an Explorer into a brick wall at 70mph or the Expedition at 35mph.

QUOTE]

 

[philwillmt]

Word of caution...

It's obvious there are a bunch of issues, but if you're going to keep them...it seems the rack engagement/gear depth mesh is the first place to start. Wish Speedco would get going on this, because I really want one of these!

If SpeeCo does come back out on the market with the SpeedPro splitter, I would wait several months before buying one to allow time for issues to show themselves. I would probably watch the SpeeCo customer reviews AND this forum to see what kind of issues people are having. I took a chance on being the first SpeedPro customer at my local TSC, and as it turns out I was also the last customer! I am glad I at least read up on them before buying one...at that time I had already seen some rack issue comments on the reviews. That's why I made the decision to purchase an extended warranty, which is the first time I have ever purchased or felt a need to purchase a warranty on anything. Looks like it will come in handy if I decide to keep this splitter after all.

 

[mt.stalker]

This kinetic splitter design is destined to fail anyhow. It's like revving your car in neutral , and slamming it into gear . Way too violent .

 

[Dozer Man]

This kinetic splitter design is destined to fail anyhow. It's like revving your car in neutral , and slamming it into gear . Way too violent .

A couple of years ago, I would have agread with you. But there are a LOT of SuperSplit owners out there that have proved that theory to be wrong. There's some 30 plus year old SS's out there with little more than minor maintainence issues in that time.

 

[philwillmt]

This kinetic splitter design is destined to fail anyhow. It's like revving your car in neutral , and slamming it into gear . Way too violent .

I completely disagree...I think it is actually a very simplistic, yet ingenious design. The first time I saw one I thought "why didn't I think of that?" Having said that, it does need quality parts and proper engineering to work correctly and have a long service life. In a sense, it is just like revving your car up in neutral and throwing it into gear, but on a much smaller scale, and with much less stored energy and resistance. Like Dozer Man said, there are other brands of kinetic splitters that have been in service for many years. Again, it comes down to good quality and a properly designed machine. Get it right, and it should end up being a good investment with many years of service. Go sparingly on quality and prematurely put a product on the market and, well......

 

[mt.stalker]

A couple of years ago, I would have agread with you. But there are a LOT of SuperSplit owners out there that have proved that theory to be wrong. There's some 30 plus year old SS's out there with little more than minor maintainence issues in that time.

Must be the $1000 extra (tsc vs SS ) is all about the engineering and quality . Probably the TSC uses Chinese steel . Lol . Seriously , the pinion and "rail" gear must be much harder on the SS.

 

[Dozer Man]

getting hard to defend

Must be the $1000 extra (tsc vs SS ) is all about the engineering and quality . Probably the TSC uses Chinese steel . Lol . Seriously , the pinion and "rail" gear must be much harder on the SS.

There are alot of good parts on these things. Quality control was lack luster though. The design "theoreticly" is very sound, speeco just needs to step up and do what it takes to make it right. It's getting hard to defend these things lately. But...when they work, they work good.

Excluding the rack, if it even needs replaced, I can probly fix this thing for under $100 for a new DR or SS clutch pulley to slow things down. If speeco doesn't address the "cam adjustment" issue, I actually thought about making a "retro-kit" that I could sell (maybe a reverse handle kit too). Probably be able to make it for under $10 material and labor once I perfect the design. Take a piece of 1.5"x1" angle and weld tabs on each end so you can mount it just in front of the cam (perpendicular to the beam). It will have a nut welded in the center with a bolt and lock nut for easily adjusting the backlash. All you'd have to do is drill four holes to mount it and cut/grind the stock cam stop out of the way.

But again, I am still waiting on speeco to do what they are going to do. For a $100, I'll give them some more time. Who knows, maybe they will do things right. opcorn:

Philwillmt, try some "form-a-gasket" on that clutch bolt. Pull the bolt and dab the threads with blue, black, or orange formagasket. Tighten, wipe off excess, and let set 24 hrs to cure. That should hold it yet not be so perminent as lock-tite. Mine has backed out a little once, but now I check it just about every time it goes out. I'm gonna do the formagasket trick real soon though.

 

[philwillmt]

Philwillmt, try some "form-a-gasket" on that clutch bolt. Pull the bolt and dab the threads with blue, black, or orange formagasket. Tighten, wipe off excess, and let set 24 hrs to cure. That should hold it yet not be so perminent as lock-tite. Mine has backed out a little once, but now I check it just about every time it goes out. I'm gonna do the formagasket trick real soon though.

Dozer Man,

It won't happen again...I used blue (medium strength) Lock Tite on the new bolt. I'll use a little heat on it if it's hard to remove...I will need to take it out when I go to replace the clutch with the smaller one that SpeeCo is going to supply us with!

 

[Dozer Man]

Dozer Man,

It won't happen again...I used blue (medium strength) Lock Tite on the new bolt. I'll use a little heat on it if it's hard to remove...I will need to take it out when I go to replace the clutch with the smaller one that SpeeCo is going to supply us with!

Philwillmt,

Sounds like a plan!! ::thumbsup:: opcorn:

 

[BSD]

Well, I dropped my machine off for warranty work yesterday. We blew the brass wear plate off again. I had attempted to fix it once before and that was the final straw yesterday. took it apart and found 2 of the 4 bearings destroyed too, one just fell apart, roller pins everywhere and the races seperated, the other was missing about 1/8" of the outer race. Also the carb recently started leaking. all this with 38 hours on the machine. I inspected the pinion rack, which has not shown any increase in damage or wear since I started regularly greasing the hell out of it with axle grease.

I dropped it off after I called Speeco and spoke to a guy named Shaun who was very familiar with the machines and the problems we're experiencing. I poked and prodded about the new racks but all he could tell me was they've been testing new small lots of them but he had no information on how the testing was going. No ETA on distribution of new racks.

I brought up the issue with the speed that the machine runs, the size of the clutch pulley, and he said they hadn't heard much feedback about that area of it. He advised me to send an email to him describing what problems i've had, what we've been doing to prolong life of the racks, and talk about the engine speed/clutch issue. he said it would be easier to pass along to the other engineers. I will keep his email address out of this thread, but will share it with people if they have legitimate emails they want to send to him.

 

[Como]

You would have thought SpeeCo have at least one DR and SS?

 

[Rob1276]

Like every thing else in this country make it cheap make it fast sell it fast and make up excuses later when it don't perform maybe someday we may wake up and start building things here again.

I haven't read much in this thread but from what I have read I have seen china mentioned a couple times no sense in reading any further I could totally be out of line with it but I doubt it

 

[Dozer Man]

wow

Well, I dropped my machine off for warranty work yesterday. We blew the brass wear plate off again. I had attempted to fix it once before and that was the final straw yesterday. took it apart and found 2 of the 4 bearings destroyed too, one just fell apart, roller pins everywhere and the races seperated, the other was missing about 1/8" of the outer race. Also the carb recently started leaking. all this with 38 hours on the machine. I inspected the pinion rack, which has not shown any increase in damage or wear since I started regularly greasing the hell out of it with axle grease.

I dropped it off after I called Speeco and spoke to a guy named Shaun who was very familiar with the machines and the problems we're experiencing. I poked and prodded about the new racks but all he could tell me was they've been testing new small lots of them but he had no information on how the testing was going. No ETA on distribution of new racks.

I brought up the issue with the speed that the machine runs, the size of the clutch pulley, and he said they hadn't heard much feedback about that area of it. He advised me to send an email to him describing what problems i've had, what we've been doing to prolong life of the racks, and talk about the engine speed/clutch issue. he said it would be easier to pass along to the other engineers. I will keep his email address out of this thread, but will share it with people if they have legitimate emails they want to send to him.

BSD,
Did they give you any eta on your repairs?? I pulled my ramhead earlier and found the retaining screws starting to loosen. I needed to split some wood so I just tightened them until I could do some pm. Did the pm the other day with just over an hour of splitting since I had tightend them up. Found them starting to back out again so I pulled them, cleaned them and lock-tited them. Sorry about your woes but thanks for the heads up. I did notice that the bearings were turning very hard also. Played around with washers and spacers and torque until I got them tight yet still turning properly. Great, now they spin so will that lower there life span?? Any thought of returning, or would they even consider it now?

As for speeco...wow...I hope they know if anyone googles "speedpro reviews", AS is what comes up.

I also made an adjustment to the front cam stop (guessing about 1/16" to 3/32" forward movement)...so far so good...thanks to Jester and Country for that heads-up too!!! I had a knotted piece of black walnut that stuck to the wedge. It kept disengaging on it repeatedly, so I thought this to be the time to do the pm and fix all the things I could.

 

[BSD]

shaun told me he had all parts for the wear plate, base plate, bearings ready to go out to the dealer/repair shop that's doing the work. the rack is the only thing not ready, which I don't need at the moment.

 

[schaaed1]

I do not believe for one minute that they are oblivious to the speed issue. The speed issue has been talked about hear for some time ... and the discussions even had some science behind it. Does anyone really think Speeco is not reading this thread?? Dang strait they are. Heck there were even one or two Speeco folks that were posting on this thread (several pages back).

Nice as they might be on the phone, they are starting to blow smoke up your ... well you get the idea.