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You are thinking of buying a electric log splitter from Ebay??
There are a few things that you should take into account when purchasing a log splitter from Ebay.
1. What kind of wood am I splitting??
A electric log splitter will split most timbers including Gum Trees, but there is also a few they will not, Yellow box, Red Box and Iron Bark are a couple that will have trouble, the grain structure of these timbers are generally very twisted and interlocking making them near impossible to split unless going to a 22 Ton machine. We often use the rule if you can split it the log splitter will you just will not have to swing the axe.
2. What size machine is best suited??
You will see a lot of machines advertised as 8 TON and 8TON peak, this is just BULLS#@T and false advertising, these machines are 6 ton at the most and that is peak, another one is only 4 ton, in hydraulics there is a law that governs max pressure, this is called Pascals Law, to work out max pressure you need to know the cylinder diameter and the max pressure of the pump, if you have a pump that produces 3000PSI and a cylinder that is 2.2 Inches you will need to multiply 3.14 being pi x radius of the cylinder squared, so 3.14 x 1.1 x1.1 this will give you the area of your round cylinder, this being 3.8 square inches, now you need to multiply this by the pressure, 3.8 x 3000 = 11400 pounds now to convert this into tonnes you need to divide by 2200 and that will give you the answer in tonnes, for the machine advertised as 8ton suddenly becomes 5T and that is peak, providing there is no friction and bad pump wear.
Now to identify a proper 6 ton machine or 7 ton machine you will need to look for the pressure that the pump puts out, it would need to put out 3600PSI and the electric motor to drive this high pressure pump will need to be 2000W for a 6 ton and a 2350W for a 7 ton.
7 Ton is the MAX size you will see in the conventinal machines on Ebay, don't be sucked into the so called 8 Ton machines. these don't even test upto 6 ton, these are suited to pine, you need at least 6 ton or better 7 ton for hardwoods.
There are a few things that you should take into account when purchasing a log splitter from Ebay.
1. What kind of wood am I splitting??
A electric log splitter will split most timbers including Gum Trees, but there is also a few they will not, Yellow box, Red Box and Iron Bark are a couple that will have trouble, the grain structure of these timbers are generally very twisted and interlocking making them near impossible to split unless going to a 22 Ton machine. We often use the rule if you can split it the log splitter will you just will not have to swing the axe.
2. What size machine is best suited??
You will see a lot of machines advertised as 8 TON and 8TON peak, this is just BULLS#@T and false advertising, these machines are 6 ton at the most and that is peak, another one is only 4 ton, in hydraulics there is a law that governs max pressure, this is called Pascals Law, to work out max pressure you need to know the cylinder diameter and the max pressure of the pump, if you have a pump that produces 3000PSI and a cylinder that is 2.2 Inches you will need to multiply 3.14 being pi x radius of the cylinder squared, so 3.14 x 1.1 x1.1 this will give you the area of your round cylinder, this being 3.8 square inches, now you need to multiply this by the pressure, 3.8 x 3000 = 11400 pounds now to convert this into tonnes you need to divide by 2200 and that will give you the answer in tonnes, for the machine advertised as 8ton suddenly becomes 5T and that is peak, providing there is no friction and bad pump wear.
Now to identify a proper 6 ton machine or 7 ton machine you will need to look for the pressure that the pump puts out, it would need to put out 3600PSI and the electric motor to drive this high pressure pump will need to be 2000W for a 6 ton and a 2350W for a 7 ton.
7 Ton is the MAX size you will see in the conventinal machines on Ebay, don't be sucked into the so called 8 Ton machines. these don't even test upto 6 ton, these are suited to pine, you need at least 6 ton or better 7 ton for hardwoods.
Guide created: 08/03/09 (updated 14/10/09)
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