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edit... if you have a detent valve then you want the return stroke on the cylinder to be in the detent position. if you have the extend on the detent things can get dangerous
What makes it more dangerous on the extend than the retract? If an operator cannot keep their limbs clear of pinch points or need a warning label. . . perhaps they should not be around or operating any machinery. . .[/QUOTE]
After you cut your fingers, hand or arm off, come back and let us know how well depending on personal responsibility and reflexs works out for you. If you dont think it can happen to you, them maybe you are the one that shouldnt be around any equipment. I am not trying to be insulting or uppity in any way shape or form with that statement. I just have to assume you might be ignorant as to the possible dangers.
The way the detent works is it allows you to activate the control lever and the lever stay engaged, allowing you to remove your hand for doing other things. Once the CV is placed in the detent position, the cyl willl continue to move until a set relief pressure is met by the hydraulic system. If Detent is used to extend the cyl, and you accidently get your body parts in a pinch point, that cyl isnt going to stop extending until you lose that body part. Skin and bone wont slow down a hyd system designed to slice and dice a piece of wood. Chances are that if you are extending the cyl, some part of your body is going to be in close proximity to the cyl, hbeam, wedge, and wood being split. You turn and stumble and place your hand on the wood to catch yourself and the cyl can promptly wack your hand off. It wouldnt be a matter of simply releasing the control valve, because it is in detent position and going to just keep cutting until the pressure is met that kicks it out of work position.
They do make auto cycle valves that detent in both directions for almost hands free operation. Lots of folks use them. I wont. I just like my body parts to much to risk one little mistake that can change my life forever. I think the only reasson most people that do use autocycle valves, is that they think, feel, believe, it increases productivity. They can load a round on the splitter, activate the CV and turn away to get another round while the machine finishes splitting the firts round. For a home owner machine, the extra few seconds you might save between splitting rounds shouldnt be necessary. The only actual time they save is the amount of time it takes the cyl to extend, and they dont even save that if the round has to be resplit because they are standing there waiting on the cyl to retract anyways. Even with a auto cycle valve, if system pressure reaches the detent setting on the splitting stroke, and it can on hard to split wood, then you still have to manually activate the CV to continue splitting the round. So if you turn to get another round to split and the cyl stops mid split, you have to drop the round you just picked up and turn back to the splitter and manually activate the CV to continue the split. With my type of wood, that would aggravate me to no end. I would endup standing at the CV, with my hand on the lever until I knew the round would be fully split before i could turn to get the next round. Not worth the extra expense to me.
A CV that detents in one direction is what most all factory splitters come with. You hold the lever while the wood is split and then just push the lever in the detent position for cyl retraction, where it will stay until the cyl is fully retracted. It works for me because I would have one hand on the CV until the wood was fully spit anyways with a autocycle, valve so the time actually saved, with a ACV, might only be a couple of seconds at best.
You can use what ever kind of valve you wnat to use, but I wouldnt ignore safety aspects simply because you think the operator should be smart enough to not make mistakes. They can and they do, you can and you will.
