Hydraulic pressure requirements.

[Grower]

Hello, I seem to stick my nose in the door every now & then and here we are back again. Tell me someone, how much hydraulic pressure do we need to drive a 6 or even an 8 headed splitter? We are looking at getting one for our skid steer which runs at 2300psi, is this enough pressure to drive that 8 headed job. Specs on the ones we are looking at suggest 2800 psi maximum and they our machine would do the job just fine. I don't want to get a big gnarly old head stuck in there that we cant get out. Spartan and Hahn make these machines, does anyone else make them as well? They both have good videos of them operating on their websites.

[Randy88]

Pressure requirements depend on what your splitting, any system will only use enough pressure to do the job, nothing more, and depending on how the splitter head is arranged will determine how much it takes, along with what your splitting, for example, if your splitting nice pine or cedar, not much, but if you have a knotty oak or stringy elm it may not even do it all, the more splits it makes the more pressure it needs to do the job again depending on how the head is arranged.   

Your question is pretty broad, if you can narrow it down slightly, by stating your skid steer make and model along with the splitter brand and model and what you have to split, we might be able to help you out some more.   

But my advice is to hook it up, and demo the splitter on your skid steer before buying, or go watch someone who has one like your interested in buying and see what they can do with it, or even better still is to go run one and pay attention to what they are splitting, it doesn't do any good to watch or split yourself nice pine firewood if your going to be doing nothing but knotty oak or elm.   

But to give you a shotgun answer, most skid steers with a quick attach and auxiliary hydraulics are pretty much in the same pressure bracket when it comes to running a splitter and can do it, a six or eight way head might be stretching it a bit far, but to half it or quarter it, should be no problem.   

I have a skid steer splitter that just halves the wood, and I'd love to have one that quartered the wood but now I have some that the splitter won't even touch and we end up shoving them back into the brush piles and burning up that way.    Some I have to cut in thin slices in order to get the splitter to split, say a foot long blocks instead of my usual 20 inches or so.

[stumpjumper83]

I believe almost all the main attachment makes are producing skid loader log splitters, some are inverted, and some like the splitfire & tempest are dual acting, there is no return stroke.  I kinda like the tempest myself. 

If I were buying one I'd want to be sure that the cylinder was rated for at or above the psi that my skidloader produced.  I just looked at a new cat 272d spec sheet and cat is pushing 3,335 psi standard and 4k optional.  If you bought a lower end splitter that was only good for 2000 psi say, you would really be missing on some capability.  If you think your going to be chomping gnarly wood all the time ask about larger diameter cylinders, because of the factor of pie, a little diameter goes along way.

Another thing you will need to do and this may be part of randy88's splitter problems is the relief valve pressure setting on the aux. circuit.  Different attachments have different pressure demands and its not unusual to see relief circuits down to 1800 psi and so forth.  They are simple to adjust, you just need pressure gauges.

[Randy88]

I just looked at their websites, and on you tube, are you talking their skid steer splitter only or their processor that mounts on a skid steer that has the six or eight way wedge on it?

[Grower]

Hello, we are talking about a Hahn or Spartan wood processor, I think they are both the same thing with different coats of paint. There is a 4 way head available and going by what I am reading this would be more than adequate for the job. We lost 7,000 trees in a windstorm last September, they are mostly 12" or so in diameter and most still have roots in the ground. There are plenty of buyers after them but they arent interested in paying for them, they want to export them or use them as posts. Our skid steer is a Case 1840, I believe it has no 'case drain' however I may be wrong and if it has none surely we could fit one. Hydraulic pressure runs at 2300 psi. http://www.hahnmachinery.com/firewood-processor-hp150/

[North River Energy]

FWIW: I have the first stage of my autocyle valve set around 15-1800psi, using a 4" cylinder and a slightly staggered six-way wedge with a maximum block diameter of 13".  It generally does not kick out prematurely unless there are knots involved.
I 'think' the main relief is set around 2500, and I've only twice had a block get stuck on the wedge.
With typical New England species mix.

The Hahn in your link has but a 3.5" cylinder, but if you pick and choose what you run through it, a four-way split should be feasible @ 2300?
In the event you don't already know this, the case drain should go directly to the tank, rather than splicing into the existing return.
(Or so I have been led to believe...)

[redprospector]

Using an 8 way in 12" wood will produce a lot of kindling.
My processor will spike up to 3000 lbs. using an 8 way on a 14" log once in a while.

Oh, and yes, you can plumb in a case drain like North River Energy said...direct into the tank. There is a seller on ebay that sells a mount for all 3 connections, but it's the Bobcat style.

[Randy88]

Grower, I don't want to put a shadow on your idea, but I've run a hann processor myself, and the first thing that comes to mind is, before ever considering one, demo it, even if its not on your skid steer before ever buying one, make sure you run one, sit in the seat of a skid steer with that processor on it, I'm thinking you'll change your mind pretty quickly on buying one.   

Next is, I'm familiar with the case 1840 and even though they are a nice skid steer, you don't have enough skid steer to use that processor, you need a very large skid steer to lift the processor and the log your processing, more like 2000 lb or more lift capability on the skid steer not tipping rating, lifting and carrying rating, your needing a whole lot larger skid steer, like the largest one case, bobcat or the rest of the brands make.     

As for the processor itself, I might be better off sending you a personal message and explain what I know about that machine how it works, runs and just exactly what it can and can't do.   The thing I can tell you is this, I'd strongly recommend you look at and price a full blown processor in the size of material the Hann can do, or more like the smallest one's the major makers build and use your skid steer to load one of those processors, and have a conveyor as well, and still be cheaper than the skid steer attachment version of hann's.   

Lastly, you don't have enough hydraulics to run that processor on a 1840 case, not if your doing crotches, knotty or hard to split wood and I'll tell you exactly why in the message I'll send you later tonight.