Firewood Processor
Contents
- 1 Industry Standards
- 1.1 Product Definition
- 1.1.1 Overview
- 1.1.2 Design Rationale
- 1.1.3 Detailed performance specifications
- 1.1.4 General price structure of materials
- 1.1.5 Components
- 1.1.6 Lifetime design features
- 1.1.7 Modularity
- 1.1.8 Open License and Open Design
- 1.1.9 Scaling calculations
- 1.1.10 Product Ecology
- 1.1.11 Safety
- 1.1.12 Distributive enterprise qualities
- 1.2 Related Pages
- 1.1 Product Definition
Industry Standards
Bobcat mounted:
Product Definition
A firewood processor is a machine designed to cut and split firewood with minimal manual handling of the logs. Processing begins with a log pile – a pile of logs that have been delimbed and cut to an appropriate length, generally 10–12 feet (3.0–3.7 m), and ends with split firewood either piled or loaded in a Dump Trailer ready to be hauled to the consumer. Popular brands include Wood Beaver, DYNA, Multitek and Blockbuster.
Overview
I believe that there is a need for the creation of a firewood processor according to the OSE standards and that tool should be included in the Global Village Construction Set. Firewood is considered renewable energy and it is widely adopted worldwide. Logs can be sourced from a coppice agroforestry system, from thinning a forest to improve its health. Firewood processor is relevant to village economy because it can produce firewood relative fast (2-3 cords per hour). The heating needs of a small house vary form less than a cord per year up to a couple of cords. With 1 hour of use the firewood processor covers the needs of 1 house. It can also produce the right size of sticks for a Rocket Stove, or make Biochar production more efficient.
Log Deck
Logs are stacked onto the log deck using a machine such as a Skid Loader or Small Excavator with a grapple. Each log is pulled mechanically into a trough that feeds it into position to be saw into firewood-length pieces (often called “rounds”).
Saw Station
The log is saw by either a hydraulically operated chainsaw harvester bar, or on larger machines a very large circular saw blade (slasher saw). When the cut is completed, the "round" drops into position to be split in the next process.
Splitting Station
A wedge is force the 'rounds' through a wedge that splits them into firewood. Depending on the diameter and the market, the 'rounds' can be split in more pieces or less. Wood furnaces generally operate better with bigger and longer slow burning pieces that wood stoves.
Outfeed
Typically a conveyor that pulls the split firewood away from the processor and into a waiting delivery truck’s box or dump trailer or just a woodpile for later handling. Some setups will use multiple conveyors and introduce a tumbling system to clean the firewood.
Design Rationale
Detailed performance specifications
General price structure of materials
Components
Lifetime design features
Modularity
Conveyor maybe used in CEB to carry soil in the hopper, as low height shoveling may is less effort than raising buckets to to the hopper height???
Open License and Open Design
Scaling calculations
Product Ecology
Safety
- Guarding the saw from all approaches creating safety distances
- Screen where the saw station is,
- A log clamp that holds the log in place while the round is produced, and does not allow the saw to operate unless the clamp is initiated.
- Stopping hydraulic ram movement quickly in splitting station
- General improvement in safety conditions. Everything related to logging is dangerous, but eliminating a great deal of the need for workers to use chainsaws or wrestle heavy rounds onto a splitter measurably reduces the incidence of injury on these job sites. The fact that it takes fewer workers to produce the same amount of firewood further reduces these risks.
- Maybe steel safety cages around all of the moving components??
