Modern Woodchippers regularly feature a winch above the infeed chute these days, particularly on machines in the 12” to 18” capacity size.
These winches are mostly hydraulically driven but may also be electric, similar to the ones used on 4WDs etc.
A winch can be a massive help when used to drag large limbs and tree trunks up to the chipper to be processed – large limbs are heavy and require a lot of effort to manually man-handle these sections of timber, so instead of cutting them up into smaller, more manageable sections to save your body, utilizing a winch to drag these limbs up and into the chipper in large sections is a real time and back saver.
The winch option on the BT300 Piranha Chipper is a hydraulic unit made by WPT in the USA – it is rated to 3,500lbs of pulling force and is fitted with approx. 40m of tough 8mm winch rope, rated to 6t of pulling strength.
In order for the winch to be able to pull the limbs up and onto the infeed deck, the line must be guided via an extended housing which reaches out over the infeed table, nearly to the back end of the chipper. This is great when you are using the winch but if you want to then use a excavator or small skid-steer unit with a grapple to feed limbs and timber into the chipper, this winch line guide very quickly gets in the way so to combat this, the winch arm on the BT300 has a quick-release pin which quickly and easily allows the arm to fold up and out of the way, giving clear open access to the infeed wheels which is a break-thru in winch infeed design for machine operators.
The winch can also be used to assist with felling trees but this operation must be done so under the supervision of a professional arborist or tree feller.
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