Anyone convert an electric splitter to gas? The little harbor freight splitter has been great, but it would be nice to take it to the piles rather than bringing the piles to the splitter.
Electric to gas splitter conversion
- Thread starter Easy Livin’ 3000
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The little 5 ton dudes are mostly built as an integrated unit (motor and pump married together). Along with the solid hydraulic lines and other such stuff, I would guess it would be a giant pain in the butt to convert one. There are some small splitters on the market that are gas powered if that is of interest to you.
Edit: A properly sized genny to run the splitter might be an option??
Edit: A properly sized genny to run the splitter might be an option??
Thanks Jags. I have floated the genny idea as I have one lying around, but I'm a bit nervous about it as I've received warnings (it may have been you?) that I might burn out the capacitor.
There is a video on YouTube showing a guy who attached a pulley to a post on the non-business end of the electric motor and ran the pulley to the gas engine. My splitter has the same post and I'm tempted to try the same set up, but I'm not sure it is good to spin the electric motor like that?
I do remember a prior post of this type. Yes - using too small a genny for proper startup of the electric motor can harm it. Properly sized should not be a problem. Most of the small electric splitters I have seen are designed to run on 15 or 20 amp circuits. I would suspect a 2500 watt or larger genny would suffice - BUT - this is only a guess as I don't know the specs on your splitter or genny. Proceed with caution.
Edit: the bearings on the splitter motor are not designed for side loads. A tensioned belt might prove to be to much for them in the long run.
Double edit: Thinking out loud...what about instead of a belt off of the end of the motor shaft a lovejoy connector was used with a gas engine directly connected (obviously using the proper lovejoy-spider-lovejoy combo)????
velvetfoot
Minister of Fire
jetsam
Minister of Fire
The user manual for the HF 5 ton says 120v, 12A.
That's 1440w, so a generator that is rated for 3000w should do fine. (A 2000w generator is not fine- remember the generator puts out two 120v legs, so one hot can sustain only 1000w.)
That's also a very unbalanced load, but you could put a space heater on the other leg (most of them are 900w on medium) to smooth it out.
velvetfoot
Minister of Fire
jetsam
Minister of Fire
Should be covered in this case. If the surge exceeded 1800w, it would pop everyone's 15A breakers, so our 3000w generator only needs a surge rating of 3600w to cover that.
It is also possible that 12A IS the startup surge; no way to tell without testing.
I imagine that on a hydraulic pump like that, startup surge is less than heavy load anyway, but that is purely a guess on my part.
If he really wants to find these things out, the original poster could go buy a $30 killowatt ammmeter/wattmeter and check it.
That'd be my advice if he wants to properly spec the smallest safe generator. Measure the electrical load at start and when the ram is stuck in a tough piece of wood with the pump going full bore. Do that several times, take the highest number, add at least 10%, multiply by 2, and there's the lowest surge output you want on the generator. Given the large amount of surging it's likely to do, I would personally get something rated for that many running watts, not surge watts.
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