Electric Chipper Shredder Good

The reviews for this product seem to be divided into two categories; About two-thirds of the reviewers say the chipper works great, the other third say it jams constantly, doesn’t have enough power, etc. After buying one of these, reading the instruction manual, and using it for a while, I think I may know what’s causing some of the problems. Page 4 of the instruction manual has a table that’s supposed to tell you what size extension cord to use. The table is confusing, but the bottom line is you have to use either a 14 gauge extension cord that’s 25 feet or shorter, or a 12 gauge extension cord that’s 50 feet or shorter (the smaller the gauge, the bigger the wires in the cord; a 12 gauge cord can carry more current than a 14 gauge cord.) This is important, because the chipper draws 14 amps, which is about all the current you can get out of a 120 volt outlet. If you use too small an extension cord, the motor will be way down on power and the chipper’s going to jam. If you use too small an extension cord for too long, the motor’s eventually going to burn out. If you’re buying a new extension cord, it should have the wire gauge on the package. It should say, for example “12 Gauge” or “12 AWG” (I believe AWG stands for American Wire Gauge.) If you’re using an existing extension cord, if you look closely at the cord the gauge should be stamped into the plastic exterior in small letters. It will say something like 12/3 AWG. The first number is the wire gauge. Don’t go by the appearance of your extension cord, there are companies that make big, industrial-looking orange extension cords that actually have small copper wires inside. If you’re chipping stuff that’s more than 50 feet from an electrical outlet, don’t plug in another extension cord, move the stuff to the chipper.

Thicker brnaches from the side. Do not turn off the device until you are confident all material you inserted has been expelled or you may not be able to start it again. Regadless, expect to need to release jams even with the best handling.

I understood thanks to the other reveiwers not to expect this to handle limbs over 1″ in diameter and the shoot opening on the machine helps keep you honest since the oval opening is only wide enough for 1″ branches. Yes you need to hang on so the limb does not feed in to fast, but it does a wonderful job. The breaker tripped one time out of several hours of chipping and that was when I first started before I got the hang of how fast to feed the stock.

Finally, and it works. After two false starts — an electronic chipper and an electronic shredder — I finally received the chipper and shredder in one machine. It does the job! At last a product that meets my desire to shred the leaves and small branches that I am ready to mulch from my 6th story balcony garden.

Relate : Mcculloch mcs2001 | Flowtron le-900 | Troy-bilt tb4bp | Tanaka tcg22easslp |Troy-bilt tb154e