6 replies to this topic

[solarbobky]

What is the experience with commercial chippers?
I have a Vermeer 620, 6" 20 HP. Will fill a pickup bed with chips in one hour from neatly piled brush. Looks like chunking to me.

[abrendel]

I once had a job swapping out dull chipper blades with sharp blades on my friend's drum type Bandit brand commercial chipper.  It took about 5 hrs! just to swap the blades - someone else ground them sharp - I notice today that disc type are more popular than drum - probably because they are easier and faster to maintain.

[solarbobky]

Oh yeah. The blades swap out in about ten minutes.

[solarbobky]

There are several 6" and 8" pto chippers on ebay, Chinese made, of course. Anybody tried one?

[fuel spiller]

I've worked half a dozen chippers in the past, up to 200 horse.
I own a 27hp 6" hyd. feed disc chipper to the 25hp Vermeer.

Two basic types are drum (aka "chuck and duck"), and disc.
Older ones are more likely drum type with no feed system (blades hard to change, high hazzard of pieces shooting back out the feed hole as well as operator risk of being pulled into by wood snags or vine wrapps).

Disc type are slower feeding, yet safer. The feed roller also allows one to control the speed or load on the motor, allowing for lower hp motors to recover (rpm) when chipping large diameters.

[solarbobky]

Low cost, high efficiency biofuel-to-electricity, past and future
Limits to growth
a. Technical
....One area that needs to be addressed is biomass processing. While briquetting machines are generally available for fine biomass, large scale chippers at throughputs of a few tonnes per hour for producing larger size chips rather than flakes are not known in the market. Also, briquetting machines may be inadequate in terms of life of the die and the economics of operation, but they are available in the market; however, the adaptation of chippers to produce larger size chips has not been addressed at all. This could prove to be a limiting condition in large projects.

http://cgpl.iisc.ern...werpack2003.pdf

[TreeHuggingTreeCutter]

Looking at commercial chippers you are going to be happy with any of the big brands, Brush Bandit, Vermeer, Carlton.  I'm not a fan of Morbark.  Bearcat also makes a commercial grade chipper that is a bit less expensive than the big names.

There isn't really a big difference between drum and disk for difficulty in changing knives provided you have the right tools and you've done it once before.

I have a 12" Vermeer chipper with an 85hp cummins.  The most difficult thing to change on it is the bed knife, but if you inspect it every time you change the knives you can get away with not flipping it for a while.

SolarBobky There are commercial chippers that can produce 10s of tons an hour of large chips but they are very expensive.

You can look at the Komptech grinder with a large hole screen for processing brush or odd shaped material.    You'd still need to screen the chips.  Count on renting or paying six figures.

Laimet chippers can make chips from a 1/4" thick to about 2" thick and will process 8" to 20" logs based on model and horse power.  

The Laimet will use more horsepower than a high speed chipper but it will produce almost no fines (depending on feedstock).  Typically screening is not required.  You are looking at about $35k-45k for their largest chipper with 3 point hitch attachment.  Then you need to provide your own 300hp tractor at a cost of 6 figures.  You can trailer the machines and power with a diesel engine but you'd be looking at $25-35k just for the engine if you're buying a new tier 4 diesel.