I like being able to move wood around with my FEL while I'm splitting/processing...so I really don't want my splitter attached to the back of my tractor. But then, that's a purely personal preference and driven in large part by how the operator chooses to configure the operation. Rick
@Jags, the shipping would kill me
The hydraulic pressure of your tractor will dictate how powerful any plug-in hydraulic splitter will be. You are limted by that low 2100 psi pressure regardless of what splitter you buy. The advertised tonnage of the 3 pt splitters you've been looking at assumes your tractor can achieve 3000+ psi, which it cannot.
Example A:
Splitter is advertised as a 20 ton unit, has a 4" diameter cylinder.
Area of a circle is Pi * Radius squared right?
So 3.14 * (2 * 2) = ?
3.14 * 4 = 12.56 sq in of piston area
12.56 * 2100 = 26,376 pounds of force
We will convert that to tons by dividing by 2000....
26,376 / 2000 = 13.188 Tons of force
So that "20 Ton" splitter is only capable of making 13 tons plugged into your tractor. In fact, to acheive the advertised 20 Tons, you're tractor would have to make nearly 3200 psi of hydraulic pressure, something very few small tractors actually do.
Downsizing the splitter to a unit advertised as a 15 ton, which most likely sports a 3" cylinder, would only make the problem worse.
3.14 * (1.5 x1.5) = ?
3.14 * 2.25 = 7.065 sq in piston
7.065 * 2100 = 14836.5 lbs of force
14836.5 / 2000 = 7.42 Tons
Hence the recomendation of a tractor mounted splitter with a PTO powered pump (independent of the tractor hydraulics) or an engine powered unit.
All of the ones I've seen are pretty well built.
I wood have a hard time justifing wearing out an expensive diesel motor on a tractor to split wood though.
A retired farmer friend of mine gave me his and my plans are to mount it to the jib crane/corner post of my shed and use an electric intank pump combo to power it..
Like others have said, a 3pt splitter with a pto pump and seperate oil reservor would be the way to go. Not only for speed but also less wear on the tractors hydrualic system. If i was to run 1 off the hyd. system of my Oliver 1750 I would be really afraid of overheating the oil and lunching the whole system. That gets pricey to fix.
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