Harbor Freight Chipper! (Open Source)

Those are comparable to the HF machine. Yeah those are what we are looking for!!

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I could run those all day long in my systems… 6 inch hearth

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On the heaver duty electic chain saws there are the three differnt Stihl brand models.
Ihave the middle duty model. Works great ONCE I changed over from the narrow kerf bar and chain to a standard duty 3/8" chain and matching bar. We were winter inside of woodshed ripping down/accross split out knot chunks to fit into the woodstoves. The hard knots would break off the narrow kerf PICO chain teeth. We put so many hours on this saw over the years I’ve had to repace the motor brushes once already.
The electric chain saws start up with full torque and have no IC engine piston/gasses softening “give” to the chains.

Probably the heaviest duty AC electric saws out their is the highest line Husavarna. This one has a gear drive. All other are in-line direct drive.

These HD commercial grade electric saws cost as much as a commercial grade gasoline chainsaw.

Regards
Steve Unruh

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Thanks Steve!

I’ve been eyeballing this Makita, but now I’ll go take a long look at both the Stihl and Husqvarna models.

Husqvarna seems to only have battery powered electric models now. I’ll look around for an older corded version.

Stihl has two good looking models, a 18"-20" version and a 12"-16" version

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I have a cheap craftsman 3 hp 16" electric that I bought used just to see how I liked electrics (which I really do!) and I was waiting for it to break so I could buy a good one like you are talking about, but that thing just won’t break. I cut down and cut up 2 ft trees with it several times and though it is not as fast as my gas saw it gets the job done in peace and quiet. When I look at the price they want for the high end electrics I think I could buy several of these.

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The cheap craftmans that I had would last for 10 cords of hardwood constantly.

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Yup exactly what Steve said. the electrics have instant torque. Ive always considered the electrics to be toys, not anymore. As soon as I break the Poulan Ill be getting a Still or Husky :slight_smile: The Poulan has been discontinued and its like the HF saw, once its broke; its broke no replacement parts to fix it. There is a planetary gear inside that drives it and it is plastic.

Yesterday, I went out and played around with the chipper. I tried a lot different methods chipping and shredding with it. You can see in the photos the branches Im working with have a lot of small branches. If you leave them, you have to screen these out later. as the machine will not fully process them. You will get all these long twigs mixed in with the fuel. I ran a batch with them left on and after that I pruned them all off. I think its better to just prune first its less work later and you get better chips with less dust in the product. So you got to de-limb your limbs!!! I then process those left overs in the chipper side of the machine and then rerun them in the mulcher feature and get a nice mulch from them. My chips vary a lot in size’ however, the branches I ran also varied a lot; smaller branches make small chips vise versa with larger branches. The larger 2- 3" branches do make a pretty heavy chip. This is why I want to get the splitter I want to try and split wood small enough to fit and then we should get a nice consistent large chip from this machine with no screening required. So Ive already started a compost pile, does anyone know if there is a thread here on composting. If so point me in the right direction, or maybe I will start one and hopefully Troy Martz will chime in on that one :slight_smile:

So another portion of this is going to be drying the fuel. I ran another batch in the gasifier and this time it didn’t go so well. I don’t believe sizing is the issue, the fuel is green and I think once its dried it will work fine. Not interested in extensive screening processes, The fuel that was pre pruned I would not even bother to screen in a gravity feed hopper. Our auger system on the other hand will need at least one screening to prevent any larger jamming pieces from getting in there. The first run I did was in blower mode and it also had a pre existing char bed from other fuels. Yesterday when I ran I tried running in engine mode and the char bed was well converted. The combustion zone kept voiding out and I made me some tars haha. So Im going to build some sort of dryer, Im thinking of building some sort of rocket stove or a barrel stove for the heating part and then a tumbler barrel in the exhaust stream.

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Compost: Locate Pile (area and proximity to house & garden), measure ingredients (C:N ratio by dry weight 25:1 – 40:1), PH (add ashes if too acidic), shred ingredients (increase reactive surface), inoculate (add dirt or compost for microbes), moisture (feels like squeezed out sponge 40-60%), amass (minimum optimum volume 4’X4’X4’), aerate (vents through and under or turn when reaction temp drops)
http://www.klickitatcounty.org/solidwaste/fileshtml/organics/compostCalc.htm

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Not here, but over there, there’s a whole sub-forum for composting: http://www.permies.com/forums/f-72/composting

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Sounds good Matt
Keep up the hard work
And thank you for all the input
Us new gassers espacially, need to hear from experienced
Knowedgable men
Thank you
Jessel

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Will the Honda generator run that saw?

Marvin if you were asking me if my wife’s Honda EU2000I would power my Stihl electric chainsaw? Yes. But under a long sawing power loading the Honda will overload indicate and turn off it’s AC output.
My newer, larger Yamaha EF2800i will power the Stihl corded saw continuously.

I’ve passed on the newer cordless saws. Some of these are even up to 42 vdc now. They get bulky with the battery pacs. I’ve hard worked used up 12vdc and 14.5 vdc cordless batt pacs. Not cheap to replace.
Laptop batts have ran me $80-100. to replace.
S.U.

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Wow, I’ve been screaming chips for months now,…glad it’s finally catching on!

Processing fuel into ANY other size is a monumental WASTE of time, it’s chips or bust - if you have to spend hours processing wood into fuel, you might as well spend them at work with an air conditioner and radio and just buy gas.

Chips keep driving on wood (or generating on wood) almost free because processing doesn’t consume 100% of your free time. Never mind that almost every tree outfit around will happily GIVE you truck loads of them for free.

Way to go Matt, I hope this continues to yield positive results for you. I’m working on a design for a wood chip drying oven to get them down to a moisture level that will permit storage in a silo so they can be easily accessed and used any time of year.

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You know that’s not true. Watch the hyperbole…

There are good reasons to use chunked fuel. Pound for pound, it takes less energy and time to cut up chunks than chips. Larger gasifiers require chunks, chips only work up to a certain size.

Bring your chipper to Argos, and I’ll bring my chunker. We’ll have a race cutting up 300 pounds of fuel from 2-3 inch sticks. The only way to win that is by bringing a giant commercial chipper (in which case I get to bring a Rojek.)

Granted, if you get the chips already made from a tree company, that’s time you don’t have to spend gathering and cutting fuel. But if you’re going to process the fuel yourself, I think chunks are a good way to go.

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Wow Chris, didn’t let me get away with that for long did he? :slight_smile:

hyperbole: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

I did mean it literally - though it’s mostly a matter of my own opinion. I’m sorry if that offended anyone. I would think everyone would want the easiest fuel to process, and hey, you don’t have to build a chipper!

I have to give Chris the density argument, he’s right about that. A bucket of chunks does weigh more than a bucket of chips, so there is more energy density in chunks. I guess there’s really nothing wrong with chunks, I just think it takes too much time to source the wood and process them out of it.

There is one undeniable advantage of using chips over chunks - availability of fuel sources. Chunks require a minimum size fuel source whereas just about any brush can be converted to chips with a good quality chipper. Also, there is a lot more brush available than limb wood, just about anywhere you go in the world. And, when traveling, you can get chips in any city whereas chunks you have to bring with you or process on location.

I must however, respectfully disagree that chip gasifiers cannot be scaled up to run large V8’s. I see no technical reason why they cannot be - wish me luck!

As for chippers;

I’m selectively lazy (we all now this) and intend to source the majority of my fuel from commercial trimmers. If I do have to process chips myself, i’ll pile up a large quantity and rent a commercial unit for a day, work it hard and be done again for a good while. A small chipper is more for proof of concept and a tool of last resort in my opinion (at least until Matt improves upon their design). It is however an infinitly valuable tool where self reliance is a primary objective.

Regardless, It’s a positive step having another champion of chip fuel, regardless of how they’re sourced or processed! I for one am wishing Matt the best of luck as he proceeds with this, I hope to be right behind him.

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I’m not against chips, and I hope I didn’t make it sound that way. I’m also rooting for Matt here. And for you, running a V8 on chips! Best of luck with it.

But when you say “ANY other size a monumental WASTE of time”… Sorry, it’s not true. With the right equipment, making chunks is plenty fast. And, just as an aside… not everyone considers it wasting time to create their own fuel, whatever the method.

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My experience running the V-8 engines is that chips fly through them. This is why they have the auger systems. Also note our machines only run at 1800 rpms or less, so in an automotive application consumption will be much more especially off the highway. On the older machines the auger hopper is 18 cubic feet and running cedar chips we get roughly 3 hours of run time without load. We did run small chips like this in Italy and saw longer run times. But also note we have automation to intervene constantly; without it you will most definitely have issues.

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Since I live in the most tree covered state in the nation (New Hampshire) wood chips are abundant. Tree trimmers are often looking for a place to dump them. I’m a charcoal guy and in order to turn chips into charcoal I have to screen out the tiny stuff before feeding the retort so that the pyrolysis gases can flow enough to fully carbonize the batch.

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Now that I have a chipper, I will eventually have to make a small gasifier that will use them. My hangup is I’m worried if they sit anywhere too long. They will start to rot. I also think I can successfully turn them to charcoal. I can use them charcoal chips to gasify or the garden.

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I think that drying chips on the scale to run a v8 with out them molding and rotting would be much more work than making and drying chunks. great for the garden and small scaled gasifires though. But that is just my opinion.

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