The advent of the Tier 4 emissions standards brought about a slew of new engines. With those standards came an unexpected change: engines were no longer equipped with Rear Engine Mount Power Take-offs (REPTO). To add further complications, many engine manufacturers were no longer approving driving equipment from the front of the crank. For one manufacturer of wood chippers, this created a problem.
Most hand-fed wood chipper designs utilize a hand-operated Power Take-off (PTO) to engage the cutting drum or disc. Any additional hydraulic equipment, such as tracks or loader and grapple attachments, are powered by the hydraulic pump system. On older engine designs, the pump was typically mounted to the front of the engine. The Tier 4 engines removed this as an option. This created a dilemma, one the WPT Pump Drive was well-suited to solve.
The WPT Pump Drive (or Hi-drive) is a modular through-power design. It features standard SAE engine inputs as well as standard SAE engine outputs. This allows the pump drive to mount between the engine and the PTO. Depending on the model, the pump drive can come with up to four pump heads. All pump heads are live when the engine is running.
The flexibility of the pump drive allows the manufacturer to implement a clean and robust option to drive hydraulic pumps. The hand-fed chippers use the WPD-03 and WPD-00 pump drive models. While the larger whole-tree chippers employ the WPD-01 model. Each pump drive configuration is tailored to the specific needs of the application.
So, if you’re looking for a solution to drive a hydraulic pump while maintaining through-power, look no further than WPT.
Written By: JD Bodine, Senior Sales Engineer