We had a patch of chilly weather and I burned through some of the wood that I’d cut from the downed tree that had fallen over the Dam road. Many of the limbs that didn’t need splitting I had loaded in my back porch log rack. That rack holds approximately a quarter of a cord.
The weather had turned warm and I wanted to get the logs that I’d stacked in the woodshed split and resupply the back porch log rack. Enter my electric Chinese Log Splitter. It supposedly had a 5 ton capacity but I had seen it struggle a little bit on some of the hardwoods and the logs I needed to split were mostly hickory.
Of course, I had decided the log splitting of the woodshed logs wouldn’t take that long and I’d be able to split some of the logs stacked over by the woodpile that I’ve had ready for splitting for some time. Wrong, again, on the timeframe necessary.
Never had the opportunity to get past the logs that I had in the woodshed. The Log Splitter worked pretty well for a while and then it stopped on it’s own. The electric motor stopped running. Discovered that it had popped the breaker in the main panel. Reset the breaker and tried the Log Splitter again. The motor would hum but not spin. I didn’t leave it on very long because I was worried about burning something up though I never smelled anything burnt.
The Scene of the Crime.
Decided to call it a day. Didn’t get as far as hoped but I did bank some wood in the Porch Log Rack.
Took to the world wide web to see what I could find out about Chinese Log Splitter failures and fixes. Found a few videos that have lead me to believe that the draw needed by the electric motor was too much for the extension cord size that I was using and caused the breaker to pop. Will try a more Heavy Duty extension cord with greater wire diameter the next time I try using the Log Splitter outside. After checking to make sure there was no capacitor damage, I plugged the Logs Splitter into the Heavy Duty extension cord I had in the garage and the motor fired right up. The Log Splitter must have an internal heat based breaker that resets when the motor cools down after a heat producing motor mishap.
I was very relieved that the electric Chinese Log Splitter was still working. I was dreading having to haul it down to the highway for the salvagers to pick up. It’s heavy and not a fun lift into the truck bed – have done that only once previously – learned my lesson.
