Bandit Chipper Winch, safety override?, speed modifications?

Nish · Nov 4, 2018

The winch on our 12xp (less than a year old) is getting less use than expected. The operators are frustrated by its slow pull rate and way that it cannot be operated in conjunction with the feed wheel. These guys are used to working with older bandit chipper winches. Any thoughts on this? Anyone modifying their chipper winches for increased productivity?

southsoundtree · Nov 4, 2018

Choke at the very end,
Pull to winch,
Lower to in feed tray,
Choke farther back a ways,

Winch in to press against feed wheels and lift piece into air a bit.
Switch to feed wheel,
When it's in the feed wheels, switch to winch, stopping feed wheels, slack and store winch,
Resume feeding.

Idk, might be different that the BB250 I ran. Sounds the same.

3 (2 over 60 y.o.) of us put 50 doug-fir, 9-14" dbh, though the machine one day, cutting a half dozen butt logs that were to big.

rope-a-dope · Nov 7, 2018

The new ones have this switch that will not allow the feed wheels to spin unless the winch is correctly stowed and tightened back by the controls.
I have seen a guy reach up and pull that safety bar down long enough to get the piece in the wheels. The round feed assist button was what i used, just had to mash it over and over to get the butt in the wheels while the winch is still tight.

flyingsquirrel25 · Nov 7, 2018

Nish said:
The winch on our 12xp (less than a year old) is getting less use than expected. The operators are frustrated by its slow pull rate and way that it cannot be operated in conjunction with the feed wheel. These guys are used to working with older bandit chipper winches. Any thoughts on this? Anyone modifying their chipper winches for increased productivity?

Make sure you complain to bandit so they come back with the old winch. This is one of the reasons when we bought we took a leftover vs ordering new from the factory.
But looking back we don’t use the winch near as much as we thought when it went on the machine. The skid loader feeds quite a bit of material.

southsoundtree · Nov 7, 2018

Sucks they defeated a good option.

flyingsquirrel25 · Nov 8, 2018

southsoundtree said:
Sucks they defeated a good option.

I would beg to differ - I think we defeated ourselves by untrained guys getting hurt behind chippers with the winch systems. This forced bandit to come up with an idiot proof system (though inefficient and ineffective work wise) to protect our stupid a$$e$. Same thing with the rope cutter on top of the newer bandit drums! That came from us being stupid and not paying attention.
Morbarks ChipSafe system another example! Vermeers bottom feed reverse bar! They are making it idiot proof, making us dumber so they have to come up with something to protect us from the next big thing!

Merle Nelson · Nov 8, 2018

Ha, ha, another example - though unrelated. Tomorrow our power company, PG&E says they may turn off power in high wind (fire prone areas.)

Congrats to everyone in our area who helped to blame them for the horrendous loss of homes in last years fires.