New to forum Timber Harvester user

tylerltr450 · January 29, 2018, 07:26:18 PM

Hi all wanted to introduce myself, since I am new to the forum. I have been floating around here for a while with timber harvester stuff. Figure it was time to jump in. Currently I have a 36 timber harvester that is a fully hydraulic mill and I absolutely love it. Definitely have a saw dust addiction, currently the saw runs amazing just has a minor learning curve. Currently the set works seem to has stopped working, due to water touching the main board above the mill. Does anyone have a spare board or know someone that can fix the board? I would love to get the setworks back just to keep me cutting the same size boards all the time.

Chuck White · January 29, 2018, 07:37:58 PM

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, tylerltr450!

tylerltr450 · January 29, 2018, 08:38:43 PM

Quote from: Chuck White on January 29, 2018, 07:37:58 PM
Welcome to the Forestry Forum, tylerltr450!

Thank you its exciting being here and hopefully to learn more.

dgdrls · January 29, 2018, 09:11:11 PM

Welcome tylerltr450,

Have you opened the "circuit" to see whats up?
Many times a printed circuit board can be repaired, if that's your issue

Best
D

Brad_S. · January 29, 2018, 11:17:46 PM

You could try contacting Ken Clouser on the web at "clouser farms" and asking him. He used to be one of the largest sales reps for timber harvester. He now manufactures his own brand of mills but he may know the source that timber harvester used for those boards.

tylerltr450 · January 30, 2018, 05:30:34 AM

Quote from: dgdrls on January 29, 2018, 09:11:11 PM
Welcome tylerltr450,

Have you opened the "circuit" to see whats up?
Many times a printed circuit board can be repaired, if that's your issue

Best
D

I have looked at the board and I found that is an issue with power going to the cpu. I can power the CPU with the usb header on the board but I cant seem to get the power to the cpu. I just cant seem to figure out if its a resister or a a relay on the board.

Quote from: Brad_S. on January 29, 2018, 11:17:46 PM
You could try contacting Ken Clouser on the web at "clouser farms" and asking him. He used to be one of the largest sales reps for timber harvester. He now manufactures his own brand of mills but he may know the source that timber harvester used for those boards.

I have been to Kens shops since he is some what local to me only about 2 hours away, and he was able to point me in some directions but everything came up empty seems that the one company I had hopes for told me that the board doesn't look like something they produced for the harvester but they may have created boards for them

apm · January 30, 2018, 08:21:17 AM

Probably a real dumb question here, but in the pictures of your mill it looks like the log stops are on the same side as the loader arms and it looks like the blade is sawing "away" from the log stops? That is backwards from the way I would have pictured it.

Greg

samandothers · January 30, 2018, 08:35:51 AM

Welcome and I wish you well in your search.

tylerltr450 · January 30, 2018, 11:49:45 AM

Quote from: apm on January 30, 2018, 08:21:17 AM
Probably a real dumb question here, but in the pictures of your mill it looks like the log stops are on the same side as the loader arms and it looks like the blade is sawing "away" from the log stops? That is backwards from the way I would have pictured it.

Greg

Greg,

The saw loads from the right side the clamps move on the left side so when loading the log will roll into the clamps. The posts or log stops come up on the right. and yes the mill saws to the left or away from the log stops.

SawyerTed · January 30, 2018, 11:54:21 AM

Welcome from another forum new guy! Hope you can find your repair parts!

Brad_S. · January 30, 2018, 01:15:25 PM

Quote from: tylerltr450 on January 30, 2018, 11:49:45 AM
Quote from: apm on January 30, 2018, 08:21:17 AM
Probably a real dumb question here, but in the pictures of your mill it looks like the log stops are on the same side as the loader arms and it looks like the blade is sawing "away" from the log stops? That is backwards from the way I would have pictured it.

Greg

Greg,

The saw loads from the right side the clamps move on the left side so when loading the log will roll into the clamps. The posts or log stops come up on the right. and yes the mill saws to the left or away from the log stops.

The rationale behind that is that once the first slab is removed, you are sawing into the clean face more often than dirty bark. It extends the blade life.

tylerltr450 · January 30, 2018, 01:43:11 PM

Quote from: Brad_S. on January 30, 2018, 01:15:25 PM
Quote from: tylerltr450 on January 30, 2018, 11:49:45 AM
Quote from: apm on January 30, 2018, 08:21:17 AM
Probably a real dumb question here, but in the pictures of your mill it looks like the log stops are on the same side as the loader arms and it looks like the blade is sawing "away" from the log stops? That is backwards from the way I would have pictured it.

Greg

Greg,

The saw loads from the right side the clamps move on the left side so when loading the log will roll into the clamps. The posts or log stops come up on the right. and yes the mill saws to the left or away from the log stops.

The rationale behind that is that once the first slab is removed, you are sawing into the clean face more often than dirty bark. It extends the blade life.

Correct what he said

tylerltr450 · February 03, 2018, 07:48:16 AM

Well all I have extremely good news, after a year or 2 with losing the setworks on the mill I have finally figured out what the issue was.
It looks simple in the picture but it was extremely hard to find where the fault was since there is just about no documentation for this board. What I was able to find was that the first capacitor on the board was bad. This is right after the AC to DC converter on the board. I cant believe i missed it for so long, what I was going to end up doing was to run the CPU after the 12v to 5v converter which would allow me to run the CPU safely off the diagnostic USB but after playing around with it i figured out that the power was never making it to the 12v to 5v reducer which then gave me a condensed area on the board to spend more time. After all of that I was able to diagnosis that only one of the capacitors were bad. So now I have one on order and will be able to be up and running again with the dummy buttons haha.

Below is a image that i modified to show other harvester users the flow of power, the red arrows is the flow of power from the main power and the orange is the ground.

Ga Mtn Man · February 03, 2018, 08:11:20 AM

Good job finding that one! Much more difficult to do without schematics. Electrolytic caps have a limited lifespan and all will eventually need to be replaced. I see they used a US Digital Encoder. That's the same make that Wood-Mizer uses on their SimpleSet system.

tylerltr450 · February 03, 2018, 01:26:31 PM

Quote from: Ga Mtn Man on February 03, 2018, 08:11:20 AM
Good job finding that one! Much more difficult to do without schematics. Electrolytic caps have a limited lifespan and all will eventually need to be replaced. I see they used a US Digital Encoder. That's the same make that Wood-Mizer uses on their SimpleSet system.

Thanks GA Mtn Man, those US Digital Encoders seem to be a very popular encoder for head movement. And yes the schematics would have been very helpful so without them is probably what took me so long. I would like to try and build a second board and pull the coding off the CPU but I just haven't tried to do all of the work yet for that. Might have to try and take that up next winter.

tylerltr450 · February 10, 2018, 08:51:58 AM

Finally got the board to run off its own power again.

When I took the capacitor off I realized that there was the main trace missing from the ac to dc converter and to the capacitor. So I had to make my own trace in order to get power back to the capacitor.

Booted up and CPU shows ok

I'm going to have to hook it up to the mill and let you all know how it goes.

Kbeitz · February 10, 2018, 08:58:36 AM

The capacitor make soft DC. Takes the ripple out...

tylerltr450 · February 10, 2018, 09:02:28 AM

Quote from: Kbeitz on February 10, 2018, 08:58:36 AM
The capacitor make soft DC. Takes the ripple out...

Correct and keeps that nice and clean DC current to the fragile computer system.

Hey Kbeitz your pretty close to me, about a hour south near Pottsville.

Kbeitz · February 10, 2018, 09:10:24 AM

Quote from: tylerltr450 on February 10, 2018, 09:02:28 AM
Quote from: Kbeitz on February 10, 2018, 08:58:36 AM
The capacitor make soft DC. Takes the ripple out...

Correct and keeps that nice and clean DC current to the fragile computer system.

Hey Kbeitz your pretty close to me, about a hour south near Pottsville.

Yep... I take it that your somewhere around shenandoah?

tylerltr450 · February 10, 2018, 09:11:58 AM

Quote from: Kbeitz on February 10, 2018, 09:10:24 AM
Quote from: tylerltr450 on February 10, 2018, 09:02:28 AM
Quote from: Kbeitz on February 10, 2018, 08:58:36 AM
The capacitor make soft DC. Takes the ripple out...

Correct and keeps that nice and clean DC current to the fragile computer system.

Hey Kbeitz your pretty close to me, about a hour south near Pottsville.

Yep... I take it that your somewhere around shenandoah?

Yeah Close enough a little more south but in the general area.

Kbeitz · February 10, 2018, 09:18:08 AM

[/quote]

Yeah Close enough a little more south but in the general area.
[/quote]

I get down to black diamond antiques and renninger's flea market every so often

tylerltr450 · February 10, 2018, 09:26:02 AM

Quote from: Kbeitz on February 10, 2018, 09:18:08 AM

Yeah Close enough a little more south but in the general area.
[/quote]

I get down to black diamond antiques and renninger's flea market every so often
[/quote]

yikes even renningers that's dedication to come that far for that.

Kbeitz · February 10, 2018, 09:30:24 AM

[/quote]

yikes even renningers that's dedication to come that far for that.
[/quote]

I really like a good flea market. I went to leesport flea market once. What a drive.
Best flea market on Pa is in Jacktown Pa. at the engine show.

tylerltr450 · February 10, 2018, 09:48:29 AM

Quote from: Kbeitz on February 10, 2018, 09:30:24 AM

I really like a good flea market. I went to leesport flea market once. What a drive.
Best flea market on Pa is in Jacktown Pa. at the engine show.

Yeah that is a good one I was there before, nothing like a good flea market