The Australian Arbor Age has written several times about the impressive build quality of Piranha Chippers and the BT300. But even though the company is still in its early stages, it’s already headlong into development and planning for the future.
When Piranha Chippers unveiled its BT300, The Australian Arbor Age was quietly impressed.
Powered by the 4HK1 Isuzu turbo-diesel engine which produces a class-leading 197hp, the BT300 runs a 650mm diameter cutter drum which weighs 400kg, and there’s a 380mm X 500mm (15″ X 20″) direct opening into the cutter-drum housing – there are no step downs.
It’s obviously a serious 15″ capacity chipper with plenty of horsepower, and a state-of-the-art electronically controlled common-rail direct-injection diesel motor offers amazing fuel economy and runs at very low volume.
The dual horizontal infeed wheels give plenty of pulling power, and with the advantage of a hydraulic winch which quickly folds out of the way when it’s not needed, trees and branches are dealt with using minimal physical effort from the operators.
A hydraulic auto-engage clutch, hydraulic discharge-chute swivel and the hydraulic tailgate raise-andlower functions were the icing on the operational ease-of-use cake.
Details
While all that was impressive enough, we were also struck by how much thought had gone into access and time saving on servicing and maintenance.
Service intervals on the Isuzu 4HK1 are 500 hours, which marks the Piranha as a professional-grade machine. Piranha was also quick to point out that with so many arbor and forestry companies running Isuzu trucks and commercial vehicles, the stockholdings of essential engine parts and spares can be greatly reduced.
As far as access goes, all filters and service points are within easy reach when the front door of the engine compartment is opened, and a remote oil drain hose makes draining the sump quick, easy, and, most of all, not messy. An access door at the top of the engine cover makes replacing the oil a breeze, and a work light mounted inside the engine bay ensures the maintenance and servicing is very low-stress.
Another big plus on the Piranha BT300 is the access to the chipper knives via the side walkway ramp. With the chipper housing hood open the top part of the cutter drum is nicely exposed, making changing the knives extremely easy and, above all, safe.
Chute to fill
With a machine as new and impressive as the Piranha BT300, we were a little surprised when we rang Piranha Chippers boss man, Nathan Sangster, to ask how things were going, and he told us he was out in the field with the BT300 doing some development with a discharge chute modification.
“When we built the original machine we had a fixed-height discharge chute,” he explained as the Isuzu purred away quietly in the background. “The chute could swivel 360 degrees, but the height was fixed. The end has a deflector for shooting the woodchip down to the ground if needed, but we found it couldn’t shoot up into the taller arbor trucks. They were too high. It wouldn’t reach up into the back of bigger trucks.”
We could see that wouldn’t be ideal, especially when the BT300 obviously had the power to throw the discharge a good distance.
“We’ve now developed a height-adjustable discharge chute. It can be lifted up and it’ll send the material up and all the way to the front of the big Kenworth tippers if needed,” said Nathan, clearly pleased with the development.
Never sit still
Piranha BT300 that while it’s undoubtedly a well-designed and tough, professional machine, Piranha as a company isn’t sitting on its hands and congratulating itself. It’s still trying to improve.
Apparently the testing and fine tuning of the new chute had taken a fair slice of Nathan’s time.
“We’ve spent weeks!” he told The Australian Arbor Age. “Weeks and weeks this testing has been going on for.
“Even this week we’ve done three days out in the field testing this, tuning that, going back and cutting off some more steel, welding some more on in a different place… The aim is to make the BT300 work better and make it easier and simpler for everyone.”
It’s a noble aim, and we tip our hard hats in Piranha’s direction. It’s the way really great machinery evolves.
To stay up to date with the development of the BT300, log on to piranhachippers.com.au.