3 point chipper?

[Missouribound]

I have a B2320 tractor.
With the relatively low PTO HP I have had a bit of difficulty locating a 3 point chipper that is recommended for this machine. I will use the chipper for simple property maintenance occasionally and I won't spend a lot for a machine that won't be getting a great deal of use.......perhaps only a few times a year.
Has anyone used one on the B2320 that they are satisfied with?

 

[Chad D.]

Lower power won’t mean you can’t do it, it just means you can’t do as big or as fast.
What are you, about 17hp PTO? Lots of chipper options work well on the 25 horse machines, which are in the 19-20hp PTO range. You’re not that far under…

I’d look at a WoodMaxx WM-8H and turn the hydraulic feed speed down if needed.

 

[nbryan]

A Woodland Mills WC46 would run just fine, I have the WC68 on my 18ptoHP B2650 with no problem for chipping power, just slow the infeed as needed for bigger/tougher stuff.

 

[mikester]

I have a B2320 tractor.
With the relatively low PTO HP I have had a bit of difficulty locating a 3 point chipper that is recommended for this machine. I will use the chipper for simple property maintenance occasionally and I won't spend a lot for a machine that won't be getting a great deal of use.......perhaps only a few times a year.
Has anyone used one on the B2320 that they are satisfied with?

This 7" chipper works great with your B2320

 

[Elliott in GA]

The WoodMaxx MX-8500G+ is made in the USA, and it only requires 15 PTO HP. It costs about $2,500 shipped. It is worth a look if 5 inch capacity is enough.

My review:

WoodMaxx MX-8500G+ PTO Chipper review - it's great w/o power feed.

I purchased the above chipper for my LX 2610 SU tractor; its primary use will be disposing of small trees and big privet hedge on our property in North Georgia. The things that appealed to me about the chipper are: made in the USA, will operate on as little as 15 PTO HP, price ($2525 with...

www.orangetractortalks.com

 

[N3BP]

I run a DR power 3-point chipper on my B7200 which has 14 PTO HP. I love it. There are no issues at all with only 14HP and the chipper is super portable. It will chew through 3'' diameter logs without hesitation. Anything bigger gets sawed up and sold as campfire wood.

Something to keep in mind about PTO HP is that they don't specify diesel vs gas HP. a 14HP gas engine is going to produce about 14FTLBS of torque. A 14 horse diesel is going to produce about 35FTLBS of torque, and torque numbers matter more.

 

[Flintknapper]

Something to keep in mind about PTO HP is that they don't specify diesel vs gas HP. a 14HP gas engine is going to produce about 14FTLBS of torque. A 14 horse diesel is going to produce about 35FTLBS of torque, and torque numbers matter more.

Important point.....to be sure.

For example, my Zero Turn mower has a Kawasaki FX921V gas engine (31 HP) and my Kubota L2350DT tractor has a 25 HP diesel engine.

The 'Kaw' generates 49 lb ft. of peak torque (at 31 hp) while the Kubota makes 57 lb. ft of torque (at 25 hp).

So yes, the HP figure doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[PaulR]

I have a 23S, same HP as you?
My Woodland Mills WC 46 runs fine.

 

[UpNorthMI]

It sounds like you don’t have serious use for a chipper and don’t want to allocate too much of a budget. Personally I try to buy quality and think long term, I want something that is going to perform well when I need it. A quality chipper I would buy for the HP you have is a WoodMaxx MX8600, it is a US made product and has their hydrostatic feed system, not all hydrostatic feed systems are equal! The feed system is a critical item.

WoodMaxx gives great product support and spare parts support. I run an MX9900 and spend whole days running branches and trees through it on my large woodland property, it is my most used attachment and runs great with as little as 25HP.

Take a look at the weight of the chippers you are looking at, a solid high performance chipper typically weighs a little more. Apologies for trying to spend your money!

 

[BC2]

I have a B2320 tractor.
With the relatively low PTO HP I have had a bit of difficulty locating a 3 point chipper that is recommended for this machine. I will use the chipper for simple property maintenance occasionally and I won't spend a lot for a machine that won't be getting a great deal of use.......perhaps only a few times a year.
Has anyone used one on the B2320 that they are satisfied with?

WoodMaxx 8500G+ says it needs a min of 15 PTO HP. It's a nice chipper. I ran at 540 for the first time this week & it did well on everything fed into it. Produces about a 3/4" X 1/2" X 1/4" chip on most things I gave it. But if you feed it small twigs, you might just get 4-6" long twig pieces out of it instead of chips. I would expect that there are two things going on here, tractor HP & flywheel inertia. So, if you have enough HP to get the flywheel moving at speed, maybe you can do fine with a low end horsepower machine. I would also imagine that if you are low on HP, but you have enough to get the flywheel going with nothing in it, you might fare better with short pieces than with long ones. For example if you are marginal, maybe the inertia will carry you through a 2-3' long piece of 5" material, but maybe not through a 10' piece of 5" material because the inertia gets used up and then you've got to have the HP to keep it running. Just a thought, not sure it's right. Take a look at the 8500G+ and talk to the factory about it. I'm sure they'd be happy to help.

 

[nbryan]

WoodMaxx 8500G+ says it needs a min of 15 PTO HP. It's a nice chipper. I ran at 540 for the first time this week & it did well on everything fed into it. Produces about a 3/4" X 1/2" X 1/4" chip on most things I gave it. But if you feed it small twigs, you might just get 4-6" long twig pieces out of it instead of chips. I would expect that there are two things going on here, tractor HP & flywheel inertia. So, if you have enough HP to get the flywheel moving at speed, maybe you can do fine with a low end horsepower machine. I would also imagine that if you are low on HP, but you have enough to get the flywheel going with nothing in it, you might fare better with short pieces than with long ones. For example if you are marginal, maybe the inertia will carry you through a 2-3' long piece of 5" material, but maybe not through a 10' piece of 5" material because the inertia gets used up and then you've got to have the HP to keep it running. Just a thought, not sure it's right. Take a look at the 8500G+ and talk to the factory about it. I'm sure they'd be happy to help.

Sounds like this chpper has no powered in-feed rollers. I'd stay away from one without feed rollers.
The rollers on my WC68 have a variable speed adjustment so larger stuff can get fed very slowly, and not lug stall the tractor. Very useful with my 18hp pto running the 20("minimum")hp WC68. Then speed it up for smaller stuff.

 

[Elliott in GA]

My experience with the WoodMaxx MX 8500 G+ has all been extremely good, as noted in my review which was linked in an earlier post. When I fed small bushy stuff (such as privet tips) into the chipper, it chipped them without any problem. However due to the fine nature of small bushy stuff, the product was more like saw dust, and this fine saw dust / mulch included the minced small leaves from the privet.

The knives (there are four) are striking/cutting 36 times per second. If something is not being cut, some adjustment is in order.

The 8500 G+ does not need a mechanical feed system (bigger WoodMaxx MX chippers have them). It is a new design that causes the knives to draw the material into the chipper; it self-regulates. Also, it avoids all of the expense and complexity of a feed system (no hoses, hydraulic pumps, oil tanks, filters and etc.).

In terms of longer pieces of bigger material, mine chipped 3-5 inch diameter trees with limbs (most were gum trees) that were 10-15 feet tall without any slow down, and it did it very quickly. I never waited to start the next tree; I dropped them in the hopper as soon as the prior tree cleared.

 

[GrumpyFarmer]

I think I have similar positive experience as nbryan. I only have experience with woodland mills…WC-68…paired with a B it’s like an angry beaver. In my case I have not noticed to to strain / lug the tractor. Key thing for me is on larger stuff you have to shove it in hard enough to lift the roller.

 

[jkrubi12]

I've had a very positive experience with a Woodland Mills WC-68 paired with a B2601; have never experienced stalling, lugging or any noticeable difficulty with the tractor running the chipper, generally at about 2500 RPM (under 50 hours on new tractor so I'm running engine at less than full 2800 RPM speed, per owner's manual break-in recommendations). As others have mention in previous posts regarding the WC-68, you get quite a workout just trying to keep it fed. The feed roller system takes care of a large part of the effort; you just insert a branch into the chute and walk away, letting the rollers feed it for you.

 

[Oil pan 4]

20hp should be plenty. I use a predator 459cc powered wood chipper for small stuff. I cut fire wood so anything bigger than 1 to 2 inches is firewood depending on how twiggy it is.
I don't find it lacking power chipping dried elm up to 2 inches.
I'm running the single cutter head 87% of crank speed and with a 76 inch straight pipe exhaust at 4,000ft elevation.
With the way wood chippers get beat up especially with dry wood I wouldn't want one on my tractor.

 

[nbryan]

With the way wood chippers get beat up especially with dry wood I wouldn't want one on my tractor.

Because?

 

[N3BP]

My guess is because most think it's a 100% matellic connection between the tractor's PTO and the chipper's flywheel, which is false. Most if not all now use a belt (similar to a car's timing belt) to isolate the two.
They are no harder on the tractor than any other PTO attachment.

 

[nbryan]

My guess is because most think it's a 100% matellic connection between the tractor's PTO and the chipper's flywheel, which is false. Most if not all now use a belt (similar to a car's timing belt) to isolate the two.
They are no harder on the tractor than any other PTO attachment.

There's a PTO shaft between my tractor's pto output shaft and my Woodland Mills WC68 input shaft. The chipper's input shaft DOESN'T have a drive belt for the chipper flywheel, it's directly driven by the pto coupling shaft between the chipper and tractor. That shaft has a shear pin to protect the driveline from shock loads.

There's a belt running the in-feed roller hydraulic pump, that's it.

I don't know how common belt-driven 3-point chipper flywheels are.

 

[Oil pan 4]

Because?

Vibration and shock, cheaper ones appear to be direct drive.
Plus for me I would rather have one that is easy to move around, is its own trailer ect.
Forget cog belts, when it breaks you're out $100 and how ever long it takes to get a replacement. Use V-belts.
Also the high dust environment will wear the cog belt drive sprockets in an odd way that shreds new belts after a few hours and they are a pain to find some times.
I give my wood chipper absolute hell it's it's got a single 50 inch 5/8 belt ran between a 7 inch pulley on the engine and big 8 inch cast iron one on the cutter drive shaft.

 

[Elliott in GA]

My WoodMaxx is direct drive via PTO shaft with shear bolt. It has little to no vibration when running and chipping. I put a vibration activated Hobbs meter (hour meter) on it to keep track of hours (no real point, but the meter was fairly cheap), and I had to set it to its highest sensitivity to get it to record the hours.

These PTO chipper are fairly heavy and very stable - much less vibration than a rotary cutter cutting thick stuff.