Echo Bearcat Woodchipper vs 3 guys and a Toro Dingo

Can three guys and a Toro dingo keep up with one chipper? We're going to find out today. That and a whole lot more. Is this the dirt monkey with PPE? Hey, I was just giving Xander a little bit of crap. Xander, show them who you are. It's this kid again. Yeah, it's that kid again. He's a good kid, guys. But I'm with Marty. And Marty actually is one of the guys that builds chippers, the prototypes. How long have you been doing this, Marty? Uh, I've been with Bearcat now for about 5 years. Started out in their research and development department, uh, building prototypes for the engineers. So, is this the biggest one Bearcat has? This is the biggest, baddest one Bearcat has. And this is a This will take a 9in log. This will take a 9in log. Okay. So, this is what's throwing me for a loop. When you tell me this will take a 9in log, it's a really small package. It is. This is about a third of what I'm used to seeing when I see a chipper that can handle. How much power does this have? We're running the Cabona 2.250 2 L 50 horsepower diesel. A 50 horse. Yeah. That's the same as in one of my skid loaders. One of my midsize skid loaders has [snorts] around 50 horsepower and it's raising. It's the same thing you're running right here. Okay. So, one of the questions that I got, Marty, that automatically comes up when I look at a chipper like this is longevity. How much does a chipper like this cost, Marty? This chipper here, we're looking probably what 27 27,000. 27,000. Is that from a guy that just does dirt work mostly? Is that a Is that in the middle of the ballpark? Highend, low end. Where are we at with in price on that? Arguably, it's going to be pretty highend. Would this be fitting for a commercial? Yeah. Contractor. This is commercial, right? So, you said a yard unit. And when I think of a yard, I'm thinking a homeowner yard unit. Now, you brought a homeowner. This Tell me, correct me if I'm wrong. Now, this is a homeowner yard unit, right? Oh, yeah. Definitely. This is the garden maintenance guy. This is the property maintenance guy. This is this is the homeowner. That is We've got uh cities, municipalities that utilize this machine. I mean, this is the highest we go. Anything bigger than this, you're looking at you're looking at other chippers. But when you go a bigger chipper, then the size and price increases like exponentially almost. I mean, cuz then you're looking at almost like tub grinders and you're just it's just insane. What was the thought process for the user that's going to buy this, invest 27, 30,000 bucks or whatever it is, and want to keep that thing running for five, 10 years. I've seen chippers that are 15, 20 years old, and these guys are still making their living with them. Is this designed for that? Yeah, we're talking longevity. I mean, everything else is solid steel. You can see like the rubber isolators here. Um, and everything that is electronic really utilizes these these rubber isolators that isolates the vibration from the engine. So, it doesn't get into anything in the electronics, doesn't affect relays. I mean, you can see the wiring harness. You go the extra mile to make sure everything is secure. I mean, it's wrapped up. It's tight. Everything is secure. Nothing's going to shake loose on you. The Kabota diesel. I mean, these things are legendary. What about for the guy that's going to not just work it, but also have to do the maintenance on it? Simple. Simple maintenance. I mean, we're talking a pulley. A belt pulley. And so, is a belt driven system the best way to go with a chipper? the best way that we can find to utilize it, but we also incorporate a uh an operating system into it. We've just recently went to this uh what we call the DDC controller. It's got your readouts. It's got your owner's manual. Everything is in here. Our service reminders, everything to help the end user protect this machine. It's going to be found right here. What happens if you drop a tree on that? Odds are you might break it. The the best thing about us as a company is we have every service part. Every nut and bolt on this thing Uhhuh. is available. So, brand new out of the gate. What is the warranty on this? Um, three years homeowner, one year commercial. One year commercial. Okay. Six months rental. Is there an hour limit on it? No. No hour limit. No hour limit. So if I run if we go out and we just run the snot out of this thing uh on a commercial site for a year when we put 2 3,000 hours on it, I mean that's kind of insane, but that is insane. Um, it's covered. Yeah. A year's a year. We don't care. Wow. That's actually pretty cool. Heat [music] How do we maintain the blades? How do and the the rest of the unit on the inside of it? Okay. So, as you can see on here, we got the uh hours and service reminders. Yeah. Um you're going to see on here, it's got the blades, anvil, belt, lubrication, engine, hydraulic system. Uh blades and anvil. That's your biggest consumable on this machine. First thing you're going to do is take your discharge shootute. I'll turn it off to the side. This little little tab right here. Okay. See, we just uh Oh, nice. kept that as a It's just easier to reassemble. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, you take those two bolts off and then that gives you access to the Yep. underneath. We're going to open up the chipper housing here and you're going to see the magic inside. Oh, here we go. Here's the heart of the machine right here. Yep. So, you've already been using this one before, haven't you? So, how many hours does this unit have on it? This unit has 130 hours on it. Okay. So, this is where you change your blades out when they get when they wear out. Okay. So, right here, here we can still feel an edge on it. Mhm. You can see the edge of the blade here is still it's a little nicked up there. Part of this too is these blades are reversible 180 degrees. You would uh just pull these two Allen head socket cap. Oh, and then you got a blade right here and you got a fresh edge. Uh right here, we're looking at the the feed speed. So larger material, we're going to keep it on slow. So like the 9 in material. Okay. You're going to want to feed it slow. It's just more efficient. And smaller material, of course, we can crank this thing up. And then just let her let her buck. Oh yeah. Is there any safety guards on it or can we actually fire this up with this open? Nope. You cannot fire this up with this open. Um, sad. Safe. Safe, [laughter] but sad. The world of chippers. This right here. So, what you're saying is Stan could hold that and we could turn it on. [clears throat] Well, I'm not saying just going to say if I volunteer Xander to hold that turn that I'd love to see that wheel kick up. But I'd love to see Xander keep all his nose pickers in order cuz you probably need those, don't you? Got 10. Got 10. Yeah. [music] Let's open it up. These guys are going to want to see inside of it cuz if they're looking at buying a $27,000 chipper, they're going to want to know what makes it, too. All right, so we are going to look at the belt now, right? Yeah, we're going to check the belt out. We just took the There's four bolts that hold the cover on. Yeah, Zav, you want to grab the other side there? Let's lift this right off and set it right on the back of the pickup. So, this is the belt drive system. As you can see, main pulley off the engine. Uh, this is driving a, you know, triple banded belt. This also drives our hydraulic pump. The hydraulic pump is responsible for the operations of the hydraulic motor. Um, you know, it's plumbed directly into the valve. Um, and the valve, of course, is all controlled electronically through our operating system. Now, hit the clutch a couple times for me, would you? So, that's how you engage the valve. Yep. So, you're going to want to start it neutral and then uh give it about 25% throttle or so when the machine's running. Uh, the throttle is a twist throttle. Then, you can turn to lock it. Um, also is you can push this button and you get free control of the throttle. But for the most part, [music] I always like to twist it cuz you you just have a a steadier ramp up in the RPMs. So, with about 25% throttle, you would then just slowly release this and the belt grips that pulley and you'll hear the uh rotor pick up. Of course, our chippers are always made to run wide open throttle. Never be afraid to turn that thing up. Turn it all the way up. All the way up. Wide open. Xander, let's flip that lid [music] shut real quick and then let's fire it up. I want to see how this belt operates. Okay. So, first I'm just going to give it a little bit of throttle. Um on our operating panel here, um you'll see the warning lights. Um basically it's oil battery overheating. Uh with the key on, this is uh preheating your glove plugs. Okay. And then the green button is is the start activation. Uh, another [music] thing when you're shutting down the machine, just always leave the belt engaged. That way, the rotor is slowing down at the same RPMs as the engine. It's, uh, again, safety. Uh, then you don't have a free spooling rotor that could potentially clog a machine. And so when the machine does clog, if it does clog, that's where you you open it up right here. Yep. Right. You would open the the chipper housing um and physically dig the chips out. Proximity sensor is what's picking up the RPMs of the rotor. This sensor back here, maybe kind of hard to see. You can see the face on this sensor. and then it corresponds with this square headed set screw. Now, when that set screw passes the face of this sensor that's reading an RPM off this rotor, okay? So, the operating system on this chipper needs to see um let's say 1,600 RPMs before it'll it will allow the feed roller to go forward. Um if it's not at the required RPMs, it'll stop the feed roller. Uh, when I see stop, it'll stop till it senses that the RPM is picked back up. So, it sounds like you've done a lot of the homework trying to improve this thing. What are some of the disadvantages of a design like this? I think we're one of the few companies that still go with the this style of brewer. Okay. A lot of other places um or other companies, I believe they do like a drum style. Yeah. But, um, we we've done some looking into the drum styles. I like to say that that's one thing we don't offer is a drum chip. So, you can call it a disadvantage. I'm going to call it what it is. It's something that's worked for years. It's already proven itself. So, let's put this back together and see how it handles some brush. All right, you got it. The shoot is adjustable here as well. Oh, you know, he'll want to see how far it'll go. Yeah. If you want to shoot it into the neighbor's yard, just open her up. That's the best place to put it, isn't it? Okay. So, this is a safety. This is a safety. This uh this what we call the knee bar. Okay. The machine. So, if somebody's getting sucked in, you're gonna you're gonna always hit this first. That's going to stop the machine. And then this is your reverse. That's right here. Yep. [clears throat] Same function. It's all safe. Okay. Um, if anybody's ever got a question about how to start this machine up, everything can be found right here in this guy. Hit enter and start up. And that shows you everything. Yep. So, when I start it, quarter throttle. Uh, yep. You're going to place the belt engagement. Press on that. Give it about a quarter of throttle. Okay. Fire it up. Yep. Green button to fire it up. Heat. Heat. [music] right, guys. Well, that wraps it up for today. We actually accomplished quite a bit. Yeah, I'd say we did all right, Marty. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. You guys let me know in the comments down below. Did a video like this help you out? We tried to thoroughly cover this thing, answer all the questions, tell you the good things, tell you some of the bad things. Marty's the redneck engineer that originally started working on the prototypes of these, so I didn't think there would be anybody better but this guy to come out and walk us around how one of these work. Hey, thanks, man. If you guys got any questions, this guy's got my number. All right. So, what we'll do is we'll put a link to more information to this in the uh description down below. But you guys tell me what do you want to see next? Because what the heck? We could do a lot more things than than what we did today. We got a lot more toys.