solar powered wood splitter

ive been pondering the idea of putting together a solar powered hydraulic wood splitter. ive never seen such a thing before and umm, well. never even heard of such a beast.
ive got 1kw of solar cells with tabbing and bus wire and charge controllers that I got years ago. ive got steel I beams and lots of other steel and wheels and tanks and a big hydraulic cylinder, hydraulic hoses and valves. and I bought a bunch of different dc powered hydraulic pumps that I pulled out of machines at the scrap yard. from 12 volt to 36 volt 200+ pound monsters that came out of fork lifts. so iv e got a bunch of the basic building blocks to create such a beast. have welders and cutters.
anyone interested in helping? ive probably got enough materials to build several of them. got to find real good batteries

Could one of those 'inertia' splitters be reproduced?

ive seen videos of inertia splitters. not sure how they would work on the super hard hickory, red and white oaks that I have. the pile of logs I have is extremely tough wood and they are mostly dried logs up to about 2' diameter or more.
I was thinking more of a production splitter like an eastonmade or even a firewood processor that splits a round into 4 or 5 pieces of firewood in one pass

How about running it on wood gas? That is still technically solar powered. Probably easier to find a suitable engine more economically than panels and batteries.

Bruce, this sounds like a really interesting project.  If you can cobble together a multi battery setup with a tap at 12 volts and the other at 36 volts, you could potentially use your 12v and/or 36v pumps to power the cylinder.  We have one of those commercial small electric splitters and it does us well.  But yours is way more interesting.

The only solar wood splitter I know about is my Fathers.
It is a Teenage boy at the end of a five pound Ax.

I've been wanting one of those "Thor's Hammer" inertia splitters for a few years now, but haven't found any local welders who will do a proper one for less than $1000.  Several wanted to design a tinker toy version for less, but that won't split our hardwood.  I'll try to embed the video of Thor's Hammer for your viewing pleasure:

 

A solar-powered option is interesting, but I have a feeling it would be just as pricey if not more so to make if you don't already have the parts, and then you still need hydraulic fluid and seals and all that stuff that will need replacing down the road when replacements might not be available.  

Be interesting to see how it turns out though!  My intuition says solar won't have enough oomph to make it work, but I'm no expert, so please prove me wrong!

I am in Northern NY. A few years ago, SUNY Canton had a 'Local Living' exposition, which had speakers, classes, etc., on their experimental farm. Associated with this, they had tours of a few off-grid households. One such tour was of a farmstead belonging to an individual known to the local community as 'Crazy Ray'. He had a solar powered wood-splitter that he demonstrated to people that were visiting his home. If I recall correctly, it involved a solar powered electric motor and a flywheel. When the flywheel got up to speed, he would engage a clutch, and a wood-splitter would travel a 180 degree arc and split a baulk of wood.

Northern tool sells an electric inertia splitter for $450, but it is too weak for the hard splitting stuff.

I have one of those suicidal screw splitters.  Giant lag screw hooked to the pto of the tractor but it could easily be attached to a motor. The trick is to get it to stop before it gets really dangerous. Either a very small motor that stalls or a shear bolt. But it is the best I have found for the really gnarly grain. Literally the harder it is to split with any wedge the easier it is with the screw.

There's got to be a way to do a "Daylight Drive" system, skipping batteries entirely.  In other words the system splits wood when the sun shines.  (Sun gets stronger, wood splits faster, sun stops shining, splitter stops splitting.)

Going directly from...
1) Solar panels arranged for appropriate combined voltage,
2) Through wiring to some kind of regulator & controller,
3) To a universal or DC electric motor,
4) Coupled to a hydraulic pump,
5) Connected via start/stop-neutral/reverse valves and hydraulic lines to the cylinder
6) To the splitting wedge translating along the I-beam
7) With an automatic return lever arm mechanism at the end of the I-beam, providing mechanical feedback to the hydraulic valves in 5) so they will go into reverse when the wedge hits the end of each stroke... plus
8) Another mechanical feedback arm mechanism, allowing the wedge, upon return to its starting location, to trigger the hydraulics to stop and simply recirculated the fluid.
9) Add log, hit start lever, and repeat cycle.

My dad loves to recall my (former professional welder) Uncle's skill in making a log-splitter with mechanical feedback arms right on the spot before his very eyes. So cool.

Anyway, for Daylight Drive know-how and feasibility, check out Living Energy Farms intentional community and their commercial venture, Living Energy Lights.  Perhaps they could do a consultation on the power system and motor controller.

George Yacus wrote:..... Perhaps they could do a consultation on the power system and motor controller.

Agreed that this 'should' work assuming sufficiently size PV array and useable sunlight.  Since electric log splitters are just driven by a typical 120V AC electric motor, there should be no reason why either an inverted-power solar set-up should not be able to power this same device.  Additionally, there should be someway to skip the inverter and use a direct DC motor to operate the hydraulic cylinder.  Good luck!

I feel like this will end up with a bunch of solar panels permanently tied up but only used for a few days or a week each year. I don't doubt that low voltage DC with enough solar panels would do the job. It seems like this should be integrated with solar panels on your house or something. Plug the splitter into a system that gives you benefit all year. Alternatively people keep talking about a solar charged golf cart with oversized batteries that serves as a mobile power supply with an inverter or something. Coupled with that you could tow the splitter where you needed it and have a power source but you're getting use out of the panels and batteries all year.
Oh, and if there are batteries involved in the system keep in mind that they need some degree of climate control and maintenance.

Sounds like you need batteries and a fairly standard electric splitter. The instananeous power demand from a splitter would be pretty high, demanding a big solar array if you want to power it directly. A much smaller, cheaper system could be achieved if you run from batteries. And the batteries can be portable in a way that the solar panels are not.

And the rest of the time the panels can power your house.

I think Joes idea is Grand!

John C Daley wrote:I think Joes idea is Grand!

Depends what wood you are splitting. I did all ours with an axe for years. Probably 30% of what we had ended up being unsplittable - twisted, gnarly, knotty.

We have been using a hydraulic splitter recently and it handles those same pieces with ease AND is less damaging on our bodies and faster too.