I’m working towards building a firewood processor and am hung up on the hydraulic design. It will be a belt driven saw with a few hydraulic components. I will base the design somewhat on the Hudson Badger except, I will have an infeed table, log lift, clamp and wedge lift. My plan was to run a two stage pump for everything. The badger uses a flow control valve after the splitter valve to reduce GPM to feed the valve on the winch. I wanted to feed a flow control or priority divider off the splitter valve to send 6 GPM to a 4 spool (open center) for the hydraulics listed above. Here is where I get hung up…. 1. Do I need a power beyond for the splitter valve (first valve after the pump) or can I use open center to feed the flow divider? 2. Do I use a flow control or priority divider valve? 3. Do those two valves increase pressure in order for EF port to open, and could that be adjusted properly as to not put the two stage into high pressure and not build unnecessary heat. I have almost all the steel to start building, and I have a 22hp engine for the power plant. I’m just trying to get my head wrapped around the hydraulics so I can set a clearer path forward. Thank you in advanced for the help.
Did some more research and it looks like the flow divider is the right choice. I want to have a more consistent flow going to my 4 spool. I haven't decided on a live deck or log lift yet. I have two Roller Stator motors off of a overhead crane assembly I scrapped. Based on the calculations, 6.3 in3/rev, they should run 300 rpms, 2000 inch lbs of torque. Whatever I decide, these motors should work. I plan to use the Prince auto cycle valve but, still not sure if it should be an open center or power beyond to the flow divider. For the infeed, I was thinking of building some hourglass type rollers just using sprockets of different circumferences. Thought process so far for hydraulics... 28 GPM 2 stage Prince auto cycle PB or OC - 4.5 or 5" splitter cylinder 6/30 priority flow divider with relief 4 spool valve open center - wedge lift/infeed table/log clamp/log lift or live deck Belt driven saw will be a manual lever to pull the saw down for a cut. Going with a .404 saw due to the keyed drive sprockets being easy to find.
I’ve started my build. I’ve decided to put up the build on the tube. There was only one full processor build I could find, so I figured, why not. The first two episodes are posted. Working on the infeed table build this weekend.
