I still remember the first video I saw, when you turned a pulley out of recycled aluminium. And now this, you continue to amaze, inspire and entertain. :) Thx.
As a novice Hydraulics engineer/mechanic I would replace old hoses anyway. As hoses are relatively expensive you could use steel piping in stationary situations. Keep up the good work!
Nice splitter! I agree the main cylinder looks a little on the weak side. For a nice convenience upgrade you can ad a rod running back from the pusher with an adjustable finger that hits the hydraulic lever to stop the return. Then you don't have to do it manually, and you can set how far back it retracts.
Same thought, no fun to watch return of Piston till closed, change the valve to have stopped once pressured reached when closed. I think that's what it would be called....... Thanks Donn.... :)
Maybe you know this already. But there have been some very tragic poisoning accidents when a micro hole in a hydraulic hose has cut through someone's skin and a very tiny, almost invisible jet of oil came into their blood. This is lethal.
It is not leathal but really dangerous for that particular muscle or bodypart since hydraulic oil starts immediately to dissolve those tissues affected by oil injected. Correct treatment in these cases is surgical procedure to remove oil injected into tissues. Otherwise it will lead into tissue detoriation and perhaps amputation of that body part. So really dangerous yes but probably not leathal.
I guess the key issue is that pressure holding component is the wire mesh inside the hose and it rusts. Once the mesh strands loose their strenght, pressure penetrates the rubber and textile material.
@@tujuprojects internal rubber hose can have a pinhole in it too and then oil enters the wire braid layer of hose and oli is free to travel length wise and then outbursting somewhere as a pinhole or outburst. Usually these damages occur right next to grimped hose ferrule since this area is most stressed with bending of the hose. If hose is bend too much it opens holes in the wire braid layer and inner tube has nothing to lean against on (like you mentioned already) and that potentially creates internal pin hole too just waiting to be cracking outside
Considering the condition of your hydraulic hoses, I am wondering if you might do well to get new ones with Quick Disconnect fittings instead of using threaded ones. A separate portable hydraulic power pack might have other applications besides the splitter, for which the efficiency of QD fittings might be quite beneficial. Great build series, Donn.
I would like to make one suggestion as retired Hydraulics specialist, purchase or find a copy of NAVAIR 01-1A-17 " it is the Aviation Hydraulics Manual very useful information,(found mine on EBAY) especially hose type and rating. and inspection many other useful facts and parts listings. most hoses should not be used past their 7-year shelf. it just leads to bad things. Love your work. Great tool. i picked up manual splitter early fall, haven't gotten around to refurbish, cause its heavy got take into my basement.
I really enjoy your videos. I found your channel, when you were building your workshop. It's kinda funny we have both taken the same path with log splitters. My son and I started with splitting by hand. Then we got a hand splitter that was basically a hydrologic jack. Then I bought an electric splitter, we really thought we were big time when I got that. Last winter a friend of mine game me a gas splitter he said it was broake leaking hydrologic fluid everywhere, turned out the filter was loose. We actually run automatic trans fluid in it. Makes it work better when it cold. Thanks again for sharing
I’ll be interested to see how the chute thing works so I can steal your ideas for my log splitter build. thank you very much for all the neat stuff you make
If I recall right Donn has done one conveyor already... Maybe that one will be integrated in future episodes and getting rid of those upwards pointing side pans.
An interesting addition might be a chainsaw mounted on a vertical carriage next to the loader, for cutting to length. You could set up skids on the job site (could be as simple as a metal ladder on the ground) and feed pretty long log sections over the loader. Chop to length, flip the section up onto the splitter, feed the log again for the next cutoff. Repeat until the beer runs out.
Great Job. You need to make a log catcher table, so everything does not fall to the ground. You need to get some new hyd. hoses, you don't want to get sprayed with Hot Hyd. Oil if one breaks later on. Be Safe, Not Sorry.
From what I can see on your video everything you've made is awesome the only thing that I made two different is use a two-stage pump and that splitter would split anything you put in front of it would never stop it
For safety's sake, perhaps your control leaver for activating the ram should be pulled to spit (same direction of travel of the ram) and pushed to retract the ram. Therefore if you accidently lean on the leaver, it will retract not advance the ram causing a possble pinch. Really enjoy yout work.
It's coming along nicely. I believe the hydraulic ram on my splitter is 30 ton. I haven't had too many things that would stop it, maybe some REALLY knotty oak. I have a 16GPM 2-stage prince pump. Been working well for over 20 years. Looking forward to more!
Loving the progress! Not that it is needed, but what if the log slide folded over somehow to become fenders for the splitter tires when in storage or transport. You've already got it figured out by now though. Thanks for the video!
Now all you have to make is a hopper on wheels... to save.on bending down and picking all the wood up. Could you have a return censor so you don't have to manually return the piston. Do you have a conveyor to transfer the split pieces to a dry storage place, if working outside?
Merci beaucoup pour le partage de cette belle vidéo intéressante 👍 merci pour l'explication, je suis très content de toi 👍, très bon travaille, bravo bon courage et bonne chance 🙏 salutations à vous 🙏🙋🏆👍🙏
I saw a similar build by an old fella. He added an adjustable chute to the end and it worked as a loader and pushed the split wood into the back of his truck. One less handling job.
Looking really good Donn, got it by the tail on a down hill drag. Stay safe an figger as you go on some of the parts. Those hoses were some real antiques weren't they? Catch you on the next one . Fred.
if you put a table on the opposite side to catch the split wood you wont have to walk around to pick it up to re split just a thought as i have a large splitter trev from australia
I am not sure if this splitter is strong enough to make a 8 way splitter. I do think it would be worth the effort to try and make one that you can swap out.
With your home made utv, is there enough room to put a hydraulic pump driven by the crank pulley? You could use the air conditioning compressor pulley on the pump to be able to turn it on and off with a flip of a switch so it is not pumping continually. Then run lines to the front and rear bumper to use current and future hydraulic accessories. Then you wouldn't need to carry the power pack with you but may need a bigger fuel tank on the utv for the extra run time.
If you go with a larger hydraulic ram, i would also go with a shorter throw. Otherwise it will be slower. But once again, A nice design and build... Thumbs Up!
I have a suggestion on how your ramps could fold. You could rig up hinges and use the push cylinder to lower it and raise it by attaching a removable rod that will quick connect to your pusher cylinder🤷♂️
Nice build I would for sure consider stepping up my push cylinder between a 3 or 4 inch bore.. Not sure th size you have but a 2.5 in bore at 3000 PSI will put down 12,265 psi, A 3.5 in bore will put down 24,040 psi & a 4 in bore will put down 31,400 psi. To figure it is the bore divided by 2 in order to get the radius then take radius times its self then that # times 3.14 then that times the PSI of the pump. This will tell how much force a cylinder has extending out. Retracting you have to subtract the surface area of the shaft in the figure but no need to go into ito. But a bit more power you should be able to 1/4 one of those big logs no problem. I love the design
Would it be worth having an adjustable arm that will unlatch the return stroke at any given point so the ram doesn’t return all the way home for shorter logs?
As usual, excellent work. The human body doess not like bending over and kneeling down with great frequency in short periods of time. Your initial test shows the logs falling to the floor. In real life may I suggest the use of two wheel barrows to catch the falling logs after splitting. Once full the contents can be moved anywhere with less/reduced physical handling. I am sure you will understand these simple observations.
If youre going to use the ram to also push the wood up the ramp I would suggest upgrading it to a larger more powerful ram. For the ramp im sure you can fabricate some hinges so it easily folds and unfolds by hand. I would also make the ramp 1 entire section (not the 2 separate pieces as you will just end up with logs falling through and or getting jammed up inbetween. Make the side walls of the ramp 90 degrees so that no wood goes off the side and is corralled within the ramp.
Donn I think you would need to go to a 10 or 12 cm diameter cylinder with a pump putting out around 200 bar. I'm not sure if my math is exactly right!! That should give you about 18 tons of force.
Nice machine. Why is the power stroke of the main cylinder faster than the return stroke, it’s usually the other way around. Is there some sort of flow restrictor built into the valve block?
This valve has a special rapid function, it redirects the oilflow coming from the upside of the piston to the bottom side. This way you have a high flow, but the pressure is quite a lot lower. So you have way less power in this function. The 2nd stage is normal operation and you have way more power. There are also seperate blocks that switch automatically at a certain pressure.
@@markassink8552 thanks for the info, I had thought about a dream build with a 2 speed pto driven hydraulic pump but this type of valve sounds like a better option.
@@salzar4431 Is also a good alternative. I guess this is cheaper. If you need more hydraulic functions simultaneously I guess a double pump is a better option
I would extende the tabel back towards the cylinder that way If you don't lower the loader the logs won't fall down after the first split and you would eliminate alot of bending when doing the second split
Get the largest rod available as it will reduce the retract time and speed up the cycle time considerably. I had a 127mm diameter cylinder with a 89mm rod and it took it about 7seconds to cycle from being fully retracted to fully extended and back to fully retracted..
May I ask why a log splitter, when you built a complete Wood Processor? Just can't figure out why yet.🤷♂️ Love ALL your videos, so build whatever you want it's fine with me🤪
If it were my splitter I'd be concerned having two speeds extending the ram could cause an accident. I'd swap the line/valve running the high speed to the return instead. Awesome work nonetheless.
you need to swap the lines on the main cylinder. you want it to retract fast not extend fast. trust me, to me the most frustrating part of splitting wood is waiting for it to retract...
