I’ve been looking for an electric chipper for a long time…

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And finally I bought this Stihl. I’ve been hiring chippers for a few years, and it’s nice to have one permanently on the property.
I’ve been using it all summer and though it has some annoying design quirks, it gets the job done, eventually.


And here...

It’s light enough that I can drag it up to stand on a raised garden bed.
Stihl advises only chipping recently cut material and I agree with this. It will mulch up stuff that’s dried out but the going is much harder on the blades. I’ve run this thing all day and never had any issues with overheating.



Things I like are…
  • Much less noise running then an ICE mulcher
  • Much less maintenance, all I’ve needed to do is get the blades sharpened.
  • Lighter and narrower than most metal constructed ICE mulchers
  • No exhaust or hot engine cowlings
  • Can leave it standing in a shed for twelve months without worrying about fuel 'going off'.
  • NO RIP CORD! just plug and play
I spent a morning chewing through this lot. Pile before and after...

    

The chipper has two modes...
Leaves and sticks. These were from a tea tree variety and a banksia.



branches up to 35mm




This is the final pile. On the left is the material that went through the ‘leaves’ setting, and the chips on the right went through on the ‘branches’ setting.




Anything more than 35mm is firewood.


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