cantoo, I know I am kind of rambling with thoughts going nowhere, but I have been thinking of trying to go a different direction than the norm. My ideal isnt an original one, and not sure where i saw this or who came up with the ideal. When I saw the design, I thought it was a good ideal that needed just a little more refinement. The original splitter I am referring to is a hyd machine, just like any other hyd splitter, except with a twist. The wedge design was made in a "T" shape with two or three extra wedges under the top crosswedge. No upward wedges so the cross wedge acted as a table for the top half of a split round. The pusher plate was also designed with a sort of cradle that would pull the top split back onto the splitting beam upon retraction of the cyl. I believe the machine was equipped with a auto cycle valve. With this design, the operator simply loaded a large round onto the splitting cradle and activated the lever and and the splitter did its thing makeing little splits out of big ones, with out having to constantly drag half a round back and reposition for another split. The operator just cut his manual labor with out scraficeing speed or production.
I think I can take this simple design and make it a lot more complicated, for better or worse. I think it would increase cost considerably, but would also speed up production an equal amount. The first modification I would want to make would be to speed up the cycle time. I know I can increase a hyd cyl speed by simply increaseing hyd flow. Everyone is always pointing out the possibility of wacking off fingers and hands with speeding things up, whether it is hyd or kinectic. With the design of the automatic log pull back and cradel, there is no need to put one's hands anywhere near the wedge. Increaseing cyl speed could have unintended side effects. Making the cyl too fast could have splits and splinters flying around like automatic rifle fire.
The autocycle valve could be replaced with a electric solenoid valve and made fully automatic, which would let the operator simply load the round into the cradle, hit a button and simply walk away to prepare the next round to be loaded on the splitter. No standing around with a hand on a lever. Devise a way to load the rounds mechaniclly and except for bucking rounds, a ton of labor could be eliminated. Get rid of the labor and a person can keep splitting all day long instead of working like a mad man for a few hours and stopping to take breaks every few minutes. That in itself would increase production.
Anyways, its an ideal and something I want to attempt when I get around to it. I procured a lot of good parts in my recent trading and could just about do the build with minimal additional cost. Only thing is, such a build would interfere with my fishing, I dont need such a splitter, and I already have one big project setting in the shop getting rusty.
With my tradeing, I also acquired a high speed bent axis motor, good for 8000rpms, that would make a very good processor saw motor. I have already built my hyd chainsaw and have a spare motor to fit it, so I dont need this one. Specs on motor are, 8000 rpm max, 50rpm min, .63cuin, 21.8 gpm and up to 5800psi. Its a rexroth a2fm10, bent axis. Compareable to the Parker F11-10 which is a .60 cuin motor. Here is a spec sheet,
https://dc-us.resource.bosch.com/me...ps_1/mobile_hydraulics_4/pdfs_6/ra-a91001.pdf. The motor is brand new, I unwrapped it from its plastic wrap. If some one is interested in it send me a PM, I'll let it go for a fraction of its new price.