New SpeedPro Kinetic Log Splitter from TSC...

[sunfish]

Oh yeah, and fyi to all...
We're all guilty of buying equipment that either wasn't made, or parts there of weren't made, in the USA. Some things are made overseas then shipped to US and assembled. (where was your favorite saw,truck,tractor,etc., made??). I don't like it either, but it's the world we live in. Go to walmart and find twenty things that are made in the USA. Hard to do..

Sorry, just trying to climb out from under the bus...lol

You are right, but I try hard to buy USA, whenever I have the choice. Most of us do.

I also don't have a problem with most imported stuff, but I do have a problem with 'Made in China' for obvious reasons.

 

[Dozer Man]

No argument...

You are right, but I try hard to buy USA, whenever I have the choice. Most of us do.

I also don't have a problem with most imported stuff, but I do have a problem with 'Made in China' for obvious reasons.

I can't argue with you on the "made in china". Except when $1000-1300 is coming out of my pocket on a relatively small purchase as a log splitter. And I did support local business too. I would have got the SS if I had the extra money, but the speedpro was in my budget for a portable splitter and it was towable. Lots of issues to weigh, but if money were no issue, I def woud have gone with the SS over the DR. I don't like copycats either. And I don't know where DR gets there hard parts either, they don't brag about "made in the USA" much. At least speeco changed enough things to make a difference, to me anyways, to not be called out right copycats.

I don't like buying "made in china" either, but on the other hand, I don't like being broke...

 

[sunfish]

I can't argue with you on the "made in china". Except when $1000-1300 is coming out of my pocket on a relatively small purchase as a log splitter. And I did support local businesses too. I would have got the SS if I had the extra money, but the speedpro was in my budget for a portable splitter and it was towable. Lots of issues to weigh, but if money were no issue, I def woud have gone with the SS over the DR. I don't like copycats either. And I don't know where DR gets there hard parts either, they don't brag about "made in the USA" much. At least speeco changed enough things to make a difference, to me anyways, to not be called out right copycats.

I don't like buying "made in china" either, but on the other hand, I don't like being broke...

Can't argue with ya there, man. We just got to do what we got to do. It's all good.

 

[Dozer Man]

Can't argue with ya there, man. We just got to do what we got to do. It's all good.

Yeppers!! Thanx man...

 

[Como]

SpeeCo made them specifically for TSC.

Sounds like it is a metallurgical/QC issue and a relatively simple fix.

 

[sunfish]

If I had bought one of these, I'd be runnin it very hard about now.


Before the return period, or warranty is up...

 

[CampHamp]

Too Fast?

Do people think that the SpeedPro ram moves faster than the SS or DR machines? It looks like it moves much faster to me when I look at the videos.

Does this mean higher RPM's on the flywheels or different gearing?

If the flywheels are spinning faster then when it hits a tough knot and comes to a hard stop, then there will be more momentum in those wheels to stop. If it is the gearing that makes it move faster, then the SpeedPro wheels would have to come to a more abrupt stop for the same 1" of ram travel than its competitors' . Either way, there would be extra force on the teeth and I suspect this contributes to the missing teeth issue, too.

I would run this machine slow, especially with the harder stuff (which seems counter-intuitive).

 

[Dalmatian90]

If the flywheels are spinning faster then when it hits a tough knot and comes to a hard stop, then there will be more momentum in those wheels to stop.

The rack should disengage first, and if it doesn't then the belts should slip. There's not a hard connection to the flywheels.

 

[Cmccul8146]

The rack should disengage first, and if it doesn't then the belts should slip. There's not a hard connection to the flywheels.

The rack should NOT disengage automatically, nor should the belts slip. That's what the centrifugal clutch is for. Hit a tough gnarly round that doesn't split, the clutch slips, rack travel stops, & you MANUALLY disengage the rack & pinion. Most any SS owner will tell you that these splitters don't automatically disengage the gears. The clutch should slip to prevent breaking teeth off the gears. TSC's problem sounds like it's either improperly tempered gears, or else there is too much clearance (backlash ) and the teeth are not engaging deep enough.

A couple of years ago, a member here by the screen name of D'Angelo attempted to build a flywheel splitter ,and did a beautiful job with it. He later gave up on it saying it was like splitting with dynamite. Looking at his machine pics, & after building a SS copy myself, I have come to the conclusion that his whole problem was that he used # 60 chain & sprockets to drive his flywheels. Didn't have a clutch that I could see, but an idler pulley & lever to apply pressure to the belts & pulleys that drove his sprockets. No chance for any slippage when needed. From his posts, he busted a bunch of gears before giving up. Not sure if he's still amember here, but I believe if he'd put a clutch on his splitter he'd have a very good machine, & it was towable. Most any SS owner will tell you that these splitters don't automatically disengage the gears.

My bad! I think the screen name of the guy who built the chain driven splitter was D'Jango, rather then what I posted earlier. Believe he was a toolmaker by trade, and his machinework was top quality.

 

[Dalmatian90]

I'll be in the corner extracting my foot from mouth

I should've listened to that little voice of doubt when I was typing that up...

 

[CampHamp]

Hit a tough gnarly round that doesn't split, the clutch slips .... The clutch should slip to prevent breaking teeth off the gears.

So are you saying that the wheels can spin if the rack comes to a quick stop? That kills my theory then, that higher wheel RPM would cause more force on the teeth when the ram stops short.

 

[Dozer Man]

So are you saying that the wheels can spin if the rack comes to a quick stop? That kills my theory then, that higher wheel RPM would cause more force on the teeth when the ram stops short.

I believe Cmccul means that the ram and flywheels should stop when it stalls. At that point the centrifigul clutch will slip until you manually disengage the actuating lever. At least I hope this is what he is saying cuz that's what my spdpro does, anyways.

I still think that running this machine at 1/2 or 2/3 throttle makes the engagement go alot easier. I got a lot of grief about not running full throttle earlier in this thread, but you don't need to imho. At half throttle it will still split the same as with full. If not, just hit it again. And yes I think the ram speed on the speedpro is faster than the DR and SS. Actually, if I thought that running this machine at a lower throttle setting was harming anything (there's no load unless it stalls which is rare), I would look into a gear ratio change. I believe I would have to buy a new centrifigul clutch with a different size pulley on it to slow the ram speed down. But like I've said, simply slowing the throttle down seems to work for mine. Not to mention, IMHO, this kohler engine at wide open throttle seems to wind up too high. Just my $.02

I'd still like to know how many units have had problems. Is it all of them? Some of them?? Very few of them??? Is there a problem with the forging? Engagement? Ram speed? Sorry, I'd rather find the problem and fix it if possible. These things look too simple to work on and the DR and SS are way out of my budget.

Remember... Good news travels fast... But BAD NEWS TRAVELS FASTER!!!

How bout it BSD, how is yours running. And yours TFPace?? Is anyone not having trouble?

 

[Cmccul8146]

Camp, when the rack stops, the flywheels stop too. The engine will still be running at whatever speed you were running it, but the CLUTCH is slipping to prevent breaking the gears . Ever looked inside a centrifugal clutch off a go-cart? They are spring loaded to engage by centrifugal force at a specific rpm & that's what turns the flywheels. If the rack suddenly stops, the flywheels do too, & this overcomes that centrifugal force & makes the clutch slip. If the clutch doesn't slip, you are going to break gears. When I was building my splitter, Paul at SS told me it's a good idea to occasionally squirt a little WD-40on the clutch shoes ,as that will help them to slip when needed.

My splitter , while basically the same principal as the SS & DR, is geared quite differently. They both have a solid pinion shaft with the teeth machined into it. I think their shaft is a 2 inch diameter, with a pinion pitch diameter of 1.500 inches or less. SS flywheels run at 300 rpm & DR run at 400. Both have two 72 lb. flywheels. My rack gear is a Martin 6 DP & pinion is a Martin S-615 spur gear. This S-615 has a pitch diameter of 2.500 inches, & my rack moves 7.854 inches for one full turn of the flywheels. Due to this difference in gear ratio , I made two 102 lb. flywheels, and run my engine at about 2000 rpm.

I don't intend to sound like a "know it all" about these flywheel splitters, but as someone who has actually built one that has been running almost 2 years now, I do feel that I have a pretty good knowledge of what makes them tick. I saw Paul from SS demo both gas & electric models 5 years ago , looked them over carefully & burned the image into my memory . He also let me take 3 pics while he had the covers off. I own & operate a small machine shop, & had to try to build one just for my personal satisfaction. Built it without any drawings or blueprints whatsoever.

As per my earlier post about TSC gear problems being either improperly tempered or gear clearance ( backlash ) not properly set, I speak from experience. A few months after I finished it , one day I broke 4 or 5 teeth off my pinion gear. When I replaced it, I did some checking & did not have gears nearly fully meshed. Simple fix, just made bigger roller on the cam that pushes the rack down onto the pinion. Once I got my gears set to engage at the proper depth, I've had no problems with it at all. Mine is towable behind my MF135 tractor or garden tractor, but I've never pulled more than 2 miles behind the MF135. Usually just move it from the shop to the yard to split.

There has also been a lot of comments about the price difference between the TSC splitter and the SS & DR. Everyone knows that AMERICAN LABOR costs cannot compete with those of China. Chinese materials are cheaper too, but so is the quality of those materials. As a small job shop owner, I know for a fact that a small business cannot buy materials, such as steel, for the same price as a big corporation because of "quantity discounts". These discounts alone probably are the difference in the price of the SS & DR machines.

Never seen anything but the SS & my homebuilt, but have seen the videos. With the exception of the cam, the log guides, & "wheelbarrow handles" the DR looks to be an exact copy of the SS, and has an extremely good warranty if they actually honor it. Quite a bit of difference in the SpeedPro, including log cradle & towable. For what it's worth, if I were going to buy , it would be a Super Split. Paul has been building very high quality machines for a long time, & I'm sure he will continue to do so. If you're still planning to buy a flywheel splitter, remember this,
"The Bitterness of Poor Quality Lingers After the Sweetness of a Low Price is Long Forgotten".

Dozer Man, your right on in what I meant. If the rack stops & the flywheels don't, something's going to break!!!!! As far as running yours at 1/2 to 2/3 throttle, that's what I do with my homebuilt splitter too due to the pinion gear pitch diameter that I'm running. You are also right about slowing the flywheels by using a smaller clutch pulley. My clutch pulley already is only 2 inch diameter, & with the belt I'm running deep in the groove, it's like Ihave about a 1 1/2 inch pulley. Don't have any idea about the size of the pulley or flywheel size on the SpeedPro. Good splitting to you, BSD ,TFPace & others who have bought the SpeedPro.

 

[TFPace]

Update from NC

My SpeedPro is doing fine.

I can't say that I haven't looked up under the guard for a tooth of metal though.

BSD had mentioned that he had to re-tighten the clutch bolt. I checked mine and it was OK.The motor alignment was a little off on these my machine and causes some "hop" after I squared it up I was OK.

I appreciate learning about oiling the clutch with WD-40. That's a good idea.

I came across a YouTube on a guy splitting a 30" oak round on his SS. He used a hydraulic grapple to place it and it took multiple cycles to split. My point being if you have some that big use your hydraulic machine.
I don't know if the repeated cycles into that large of piece of oak is good bad or indifferent. Its the time wasted in setting it up and then once it's split it nearly turns your splitter over from the excess weight.

 

[Dozer Man]

Is slow better??

After reading most of this thread again, I still can't help but wonder if speeco doesn't have this machine geared wrong. I don't know the flywheel speed but I would bet, at full throttle anyways, that it is faster than dr and ss. I've determined that from studying ram speeds on youtube videos of the DR, SS, and the speedpro. From watching the videos, imho, it looks like the DR has the slowest ram speed, with the SS second to slowest. And then it looks like the spdpro is a lot faster than both.

It really didn't take much operation on my part to figure out that full throttle is not needed. And also, that the engagement of the rack and pinion was a lot easier at partial throttle, no grinding, no missfires, and it took a lot less effert to engage.

Cmccul8146,
As you've built your own, you would probly be a good one to ask this question... If i wanted to slow down the flywheel speed (which in turn would slow down the ramspeed), would I need a bigger pulley or a smaller pulley on the clutch?? As I've said before, I have no problem running a slower engine speed to accomplish the same thing, not to mention fuel savings. Just curious to your opinion. And buying the SS was not an option for me. I don't have that kind of money. Also,imho, I think your input in this thread is greatly appreciated by all. Thanks.

To me it was a choice between speedpro kinetic and a 28ton speeco vert/horiz hydro machine(only brand local at bigR and tsc). Everybody quickly throws us under the bus for buying the SpeedPro without considering the fact that some of us don't have the extra $1300 to buy the SS. I had a long conversation with Paul @ SS before making my decision, he actually understood my dilemma. I needed a new splitter and had a budget for it... Plain and simple...and I'm still happy with my decision.

 

[BSD]

How bout it BSD, how is yours running.

we were slammed with a noreaster last week but one of my guys was splitting with it saturday for a couple hours after we started getting caught up. no problems other than my handle extension needs minor re-enforcing. After the broken teeth post last week I went and checked my unit carefully. So far, no signs of worn teeth on the rack or the pinion gear. We've split about 12 full cord with it now. should have plenty more to do after cleanup of storm alfred is done.

also, about the sudden ram stops. these units will disengage mid-travel if they hit something really hard. all that forward motion is transferred into an upward motion on the rack which will disengage the ram from the pinion gear. At least mine will. not sure if any of my mods have changed this behavior. I have also seen my unit slip the clutch when a knot is encountered in the middle of the piece.

 

[CampHamp]

Camp, when the rack stops, the flywheels stop too. The engine will still be running at whatever speed you were running it, but the CLUTCH is slipping to prevent breaking the gears.

Thanks, CM and DozerMan, for all this insight. Previously, I thought CM was saying that the clutch would avoid transferring the flywheel "stored energy" to the rack. I get it - the clutch prevents the engine from adding too much force to a stopped flywheel (what I thought initially).

What I am talking about is different though: The kinetic force stored in the flywheels (take the engine out of the picture entirely - just picture the wheels spinning under their own momentum with no engine attached).

If you were to double the RPM's of a SS machine's flywheels to 600 RPM's and sent that ram into a brick wall, then what would happen? My guess is that you'd have the same symptoms that SpeedPro users are seeing. You would grind gears on engagement and you'd loose teeth upon the strike.

My hope is that excessive flywheel RPM's is the major contributor to the problem, because the solution is simple and within the grasp of all owners - they would just need to run at half-throttle like DozerMan does. And as he suggests as well, the engagement is also cleaner with less grinding (and less wear and the gears and less force needed on that bendable plunger rod*).


*I did mention earlier, when I looked at one of these at my local TSC, that the demo failed because the engagement was not deep into the teeth and even light force would cause the auto-disengagement that DozerMan just described. In that case, the cause was that the rod that connects the handle to the engagement mechanism had bent (from being forced down hard by the operator, I guess) and so it wouldn't push the rack fully onto the pinion.

 

[tnxm]

So far so good 5 plus cords stacked and ready to burn, took it out in the woods had an "incident", splitter jack knives, got a little banged up( Gas tank dented, scratches, lots of cuss words). Rolled it over when straight home and drained the oil on it, gonna change it tmrw and hope everything is okay... Main concern is the engine is way out line now, second concern is when it rolled it went 360 degrees and hoping the force didnt break something in the engagement action. Guess I may be the first poor sap to find out this things crash test rating. You dont have to tell me im an idiot I already know lol

 

[Dozer Man]

So far so good 5 plus cords stacked and ready to burn, took it out in the woods had an "incident", splitter jack knives, got a little banged up( Gas tank dented, scratches, lots of cuss words). Rolled it over when straight home and drained the oil on it, gonna change it tmrw and hope everything is okay... Main concern is the engine is way out line now, second concern is when it rolled it went 360 degrees and hoping the force didnt break something in the engagement action. Guess I may be the first poor sap to find out this things crash test rating. You dont have to tell me im an idiot I already know lol

Lol, I would think you should be fine doing what you are doing. Hopefully you can adjust the engine back into line with out too much trouble. I once forgot to shut the tailgate and lost a "whacker" vibratory hand compactor, at 60mph!!
I heard it slide out and got to watch it hit the road and bounce 20 feet into the air. Luckily it landed and tumbled to a stop in a bean field. Loaded it up, took back to shop, straightened the handle, checked the oil, hit the choke and she fired on the first pull. She still runs fine today, just looks a little beat up though.

Hopefully you don't have to break out the hammer and the blue wrench (torch) !!!
Good luck and keep us posted!!!

 

[Jester3775]

New guy

Hi, new to this forum and having fun reading this thread about SpeedPro splitter. My limited experience includes having bought one last week. Brought it home and had a friend looking at it in the garage and he noticed the engine was radically out of line with flywheel. We looked at how to adjust and there was no way to do it, (without cutting and welding)
Motor literally had to move 1" sideways to line up properly. Talk about lack of quality control. I ended up returning it and grabbed the only other one they had at TSC. To tell you the truth, that one isn't quite right either but I believe it is "good enough" Also noticed that yes the engagement of rack and pinion is way quieter ? at half throttle or so vs full throttle. Upon looking at it with covers off I am convinced that there has to be some "gear grinding" at any speed though, whether we hear it or not. I mean what are we really doing ? Taking a rotating gear and forcing it into a stationary rack. No clutch to help with engagement. Makes me wonder how any of these last long term, but apparently they do ? (Some models ?)