Cyclopsided 7.5hp >>Electric<< Homebrewed Woodsplitter

[juanni]

I recently built my Bro a woodsplitter, we wanted electric for the power, reliability, no gas, no gas fumes, less noise etc.
It pretty much is going to be stationary in his yard, he has tree services bring him the big wood for free rather than them hauling it to the landfill and getting charged. Some are oak, pine and eucalyptus up to 4ft diameter.
Found a good used Baldor 7.5hp Industrial, 3450 motor, a new Prince 6x30 cylinder and got to work.
Used a 8x48 wide flange beam and a lot of 1" plate.
Haldex 22gpm pump.
1st thing I decided is I was going to offset the beam from the axle and tongue. It didn't make a lot of sense to me to have the beam centered and doing so a longer lift/staging table could be used. Hence the name and the eye.
The tongue is pinned for quick removal.


^Finished , and folded up for transportation.


^Lift/staging table out.


^Lift/staging table down.


^Lift arm is separate from lift table for folding and to not allow the table to raise the splitter when it contacts the ground. Same axis of rotation.


^And on bronze bushings with grease fittings.


^4 way.

^Both the lift and 4 way have needle valve to regulate the speed.


^I put the controls so they would be the most intuitive. As in farthest from operator is lift, middle, 4 way, closest splitter, and orientated them so when you want the lift/4 way to go up you raise up the handle.


^I temporarily attached the whole thing to an axis, supported on 2 heavy steel sawhorses so I could rotate it all and make purty flat welds. Rather than my drippy out of position specials.

Ugh, photo posted out.
I will show some construction pics if interested.

Oh and it works great. No hardwood where I live and build it, only softwoods. Worst I could find was some 24" nasty pine but it only required 500psi to split. The PR valve is set at 2500psi and detent at 2000psi. So the pine wasn't much of a challenge.

 

[VW Splitter]

I like it. I haven't seen a lot of heavy duty electric splitters. I am an electrician, I like the idea. Is it three phase or single phase? How many amp outlet you gotta have to plug it in? What is the cycle time on it?

 

[Deleted member 117362]

Very nice! Am I your brother? Sure he will appreciate all your excellent work.

 

[Cody]

That's a nice unit, very well thought out it appears. I always enjoy seeing someone fab up stuff, and has thoughts about things that even companies dedicated to building splitters don't come up with.

 

[LondonNeil]

Looks very good, do show us the beast in action too.

 

[Ryan'smilling]

How's the cycle time with that 6" cylinder?

 

[dave_dj1]

Looks to be of very nice quality and workmanship, your brother should be very proud. I do have a question though, is your brother left handed? It seems as though the log lift would be on the wrong side for a right handed person. Just an observation. We need some video of it running a four footer

 

[juanni]

Thanks fellas for the compliments!!

Single Phase.
It uses about 30 amps, depending on the voltage. Not sure exactly what Bro's voltage is at his home.
He is putting in a 50 amp outlet right at his exterior breaker box.
I have a stainless steel 'Hoffman" type enclosure that I will be putting in a Square D NEMA size 2 mag starter with OL protection, when I find a good used one.
The splitter already has the brackets to mount the Hoffman box on it. They are the 2 Jr channel uprights directly behind the staging table.

Cycle time is about 18 seconds in the 1st stage. With the pine it only kicked into the second stage for a couple of seconds till the wood cracked then shifted right back to the 1st stage.
Full extend at 2nd stage is about 40 seconds.

Typically I believe he will stack in two 15" rounds, with the 4 way and get 8 pieces per stroke.
I have a 4"x 28" with a 5 'hp' special duty motor which is probably closer to 3.5 hp and I find I really am not standing there watching or waiting for the ram with all the other stuff of shucking off the 8 splits and getting the next 2 rounds ready to go. I split and in goes directly into the stacked final location.
Actually quite the aerobic workout, keeping it fed even with 2 guys.

He is right handed like myself.
I like using my weak arm to work the controls and my strong arm to wrestle the rounds into position.
Either a 2nd guy has to load the staging and lift (he has kids or Bro #3 who also splits and burns wood), or you have to come around and do it yourself.
But with the 30" staging lift on the same side as the operator you don't have room to get in and place the rounds.
Whereas you can roll them into place with a hook on a pole.

 

[Yarz]

That is a nice looking machine!
I love the idea of not having the lift table attached to the lift arm. I'll be filing that idea away for consideration when I finally get to building a splitter.

 

[rancher2]

Nice log lift. You never have enough staging room for rounds. You will like that six inch cylinder. I run a six on my firewood processor and it will split some wood.

 

[juanni]

Cycle time is about 18 seconds in the 1st stage. With the pine it only kicked into the second stage for a couple of seconds till the wood cracked then shifted right back to the 1st stage.
Full extend at 2nd stage is about 40 seconds.

Correction, it is a 28gpm pump, not what I originally wrote.
Extend and retract at 1st stage volume is 14 seconds.
Extend in 2nd stage mode is 30 seconds, Retract in 1st stage mode is 6 seconds.

 

[juanni]

That is a nice looking machine!
I love the idea of not having the lift table attached to the lift arm. I'll be filing that idea away for consideration when I finally get to building a splitter.

Yes I didn't want the lift banging the ground, jarring the splitter and sending a rolling a log over a kid's fingers.....or worse.

He has been renting a Barrato splitter from the rental yard. Good splitter but has too much consumer safety stuff on it. Has to use it in vertical mode because it has no log lift.
Guy #1 rolls the rounds over and tips them up on end.
Guy #2 sits on a bucket and places the round under the wedge with help from Guy #2.
Guy #3 stands up works the controls and safety mechanism that you have to unlatch every time to move the valve lever.
Daughter #2 holds umbrella over whomever looks like they are most likely going to pass out. LOL
^Whole process sounded dreadfully time consuming.

 

[rarefish383]

Very nice build, would love to see it in action, Joe.

 

[grizz55chev]

Yes I didn't want the lift banging the ground, jarring the splitter and sending a rolling a log over a kid's fingers.....or worse.

He has been renting a Barrato splitter from the rental yard. Good splitter but has too much consumer safety stuff on it. Has to use it in vertical mode because it has no log lift.
Guy #1 rolls the rounds over and tips them up on end.
Guy #2 sits on a bucket and places the round under the wedge with help from Guy #2.
Guy #3 stands up works the controls and safety mechanism that you have to unlatch every time to move the valve lever.
Daughter #2 holds umbrella over whomever looks like they are most likely going to pass out. LOL
^Whole process sounded dreadfully time consuming.

Not to mention the 2 man tag team needed, I have a rule that is not allowed to be deviated from, one man operation ONLY! The man putting the log on the splitter is the same man operating the splitter, no exceptions, seen to many crushed or lopped off fingers from 2 man operation.

 

[juanni]

I have a rule that is not allowed to be deviated from, one man operation ONLY! The man putting the log on the splitter is the same man operating the splitter, no exceptions, seen to many crushed or lopped off fingers from 2 man operation.

Agreed, if you are going to lop off someone's fingers it should be your own.

 

[Cody]

Not to mention the 2 man tag team needed, I have a rule that is not allowed to be deviated from, one man operation ONLY! The man putting the log on the splitter is the same man operating the splitter, no exceptions, seen to many crushed or lopped off fingers from 2 man operation.

Agreed, if you are going to lop off someone's fingers it should be your own.

My girlfriend was the one running the lever at the time, her first time, and she was doing great. I never told her that she needed to watch my hands/fingers at all times, that's my responsibility. With her running the lever I was on the opposite side and I got into a routine as it was all going quite smooth, it was that routine that did me in. Since then I've basically been the same way, one guy splitting. Dad always wants to split wood, thinks there needs to be 2-3 guys, thinks it goes faster. It's nice having someone there to help with big rounds, but that's why I noodle them down. There's no reason to have a 300+ pound round on a box store splitter.