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Earlier this year I purchased a Jinma chipper and thought I'd post a review of it. This testing was done with a JD 4310 tractor with 25.5 pto hp and the wood I chipped was mostly Douglas Fir with a smattering of vine maple thrown in the mix. A smaller tractor can run this chipper but you may not get the full 6" chipping capacity with less power.
The Jinma chipper appeared to offer a lot of capability for the money. Comparable big-name chippers generally cost $3500 and up, so this $1550 unit seemed like quite a value. Features of this 780 lb. chipper include 6" cutting capacity, heavy 24" 175 lb. flywheel with two 10" cutting blades and anvil, a 24"' square feed chute that is positioned horizontally at hip level for easy feeding, a chip blower that makes it easy to blow chips into a wheelbarrow or truck/trailer, and a belt driven feed roller that pulls material right into the cutting blades. This chipper runs on a standard Cat-1 540 pto output and a pto shaft is included. The flywheel assembly is driven by a set of five belts from the pto shaft, and the feed roller is driven by a single belt. The chinese belts are of suspect quality, but good quality replacement belts are available at any NAPA store.
I bought the chipper new for $1550 site unseen in January from Adams Tractors in The Dalles, Oregon. In addition to the chipper I purchased an accessory kit for $120 that includes an extra NAPA feed roller belt and an extra set of blades.
Initial inspection upon arrival revealed a few shortcomings.
During operation the feed roller may need to be raised a bit when feeding larger material (thicker than 4" or so). Unfortunately, the lever that is used to raise the feed roller is located awkwardly above and behind the feed chute. To use this the operator must reach up and over the chute to reach the lever while simultaneously trying to feed material. This back-tweaking operation is nearly impossible and generally requires two people. I had a footpedal fabricated that makes this an easy one person operation.
Also, the 3 point hitch geometry would not work with my JD Top-and-tilt kit. Although the lower pins are dimensionally a Cat-1 standard 26" apart, the top pin is 20" above the lower pins and set 6" back. My hydraulic top link did not extend far enough to reach the top pin. Furthermore, I wanted to use the chipper with my JD I-Match quick hitch, which requires 15" between the top and lower pins. The fabricator made a removable drop-hitch adapter that put the top pin in the same vertical plane as the lower pins and dropped it to meet the I-match dimensional requirements. It is necessary to remove this new drop-hitch when changing drive belts.
Before starting it up for the first time I did a once-over, greasing everything and tightening all the bolts. Boy am I glad I did! The main shaft off the pto rotates in two bearing pillow blocks, each of which is held in place by two bolts. One of these four nuts was missing and another was very loose! This could have been disastrous. A trip to three hardware stores finally turned up the 14mm 1.5 pitch metric nuts that were required. Unfortunately, one of the grease zerks broke off during this maintenance so I'll have to fix that.
Once this work was complete I hooked the chipper up to the 3-point hitch and discovered that the included pto shaft was at least 12" too short! A new pto shaft was purchased and cut to size and I was up and running.
The first item fed into the chipper was a dry 10 foot 2" thick douglas fir tree. I was amazed at how easily the chipper pulled the tree into and through the chipper and voila, it was gone. The blower blew chips into a fairly small pile with good force, so it would be easy to place the chips directly into a wheelbarrow or small cart. The next tree was about 3" thick. This was fed into the chipper without raising the feed roller which caused the feed roller to jam (due to loose belt) and the cheap chinese belt started squealing and smoking. I lifted the feed roller and it then grabbed the tree and pulled it right through. Very impressive, but I had to do something about that belt.
Removal of the feed roller belt cover was fairly simple, and revealed the gearbox and belt adjustment and clutch mechanism. While installing the replacement NAPA A-36 belt I decided to drain the chinese oil out of the gearbox and replace it with some fresh gear oil. The old oil was pretty sickly looking and after draining it there were some fine metal particles in the pan so changing it was a good call. Reassembly was easy and the new belt was adjusted good and tight.
After using it extensively for five hours or so I must say that I'm very impressed. It handled everything we through at it, at least a couple dozen Douglas Fir trees and a lot of pruned deadwood. The largest material run through it was about 6" thick and the chipper didn't have any trouble with it but 25 pto hp is a bit marginal for material that large. It was amazing to put some 25-30 foot 5" trees through the chipper, without limbing them first, and have them gobbled right up. Trees that large required a little pushing since the feed roller didn't quite have the bite to pull them through with all the side branches. The wide feed chute helps immensely with this situation but these small chippers can only handle so much. They are not the 200 hp monsters that are used commercially.
Near the end of the day I screwed up and backed the chipper into a stump that I couldn't see from the drivers seat. The base of the chipper was bent fairly badly but it didn't affect operation, and it looks like its an easy piece to unbolt and flatten out. Oops.
Overall, I'd say this chipper is an exceptional value. Parts availability was a concern, but most of the parts can be bought off the shelf. In fact the manual that comes with the machine lists North American part numbers for many components - bearings, belts, and pulleys are all off-the-shelf items at most industrial supplies. A rumor is floating around that the blades have been cross referenced to those of another manufacturer, but I have not validated this yet. My dealer has no trouble supplying spare blades though, and he says the few parts that are proprietary are available but there may be a wait on them.
If you are looking for a turnkey chipper with strong dealer support this one may not be for you, but if you're not afraid to do some of your own maintenance and repairs I'd highly recommend this chipper.
The Jinma chipper appeared to offer a lot of capability for the money. Comparable big-name chippers generally cost $3500 and up, so this $1550 unit seemed like quite a value. Features of this 780 lb. chipper include 6" cutting capacity, heavy 24" 175 lb. flywheel with two 10" cutting blades and anvil, a 24"' square feed chute that is positioned horizontally at hip level for easy feeding, a chip blower that makes it easy to blow chips into a wheelbarrow or truck/trailer, and a belt driven feed roller that pulls material right into the cutting blades. This chipper runs on a standard Cat-1 540 pto output and a pto shaft is included. The flywheel assembly is driven by a set of five belts from the pto shaft, and the feed roller is driven by a single belt. The chinese belts are of suspect quality, but good quality replacement belts are available at any NAPA store.
I bought the chipper new for $1550 site unseen in January from Adams Tractors in The Dalles, Oregon. In addition to the chipper I purchased an accessory kit for $120 that includes an extra NAPA feed roller belt and an extra set of blades.
Initial inspection upon arrival revealed a few shortcomings.
During operation the feed roller may need to be raised a bit when feeding larger material (thicker than 4" or so). Unfortunately, the lever that is used to raise the feed roller is located awkwardly above and behind the feed chute. To use this the operator must reach up and over the chute to reach the lever while simultaneously trying to feed material. This back-tweaking operation is nearly impossible and generally requires two people. I had a footpedal fabricated that makes this an easy one person operation.
Also, the 3 point hitch geometry would not work with my JD Top-and-tilt kit. Although the lower pins are dimensionally a Cat-1 standard 26" apart, the top pin is 20" above the lower pins and set 6" back. My hydraulic top link did not extend far enough to reach the top pin. Furthermore, I wanted to use the chipper with my JD I-Match quick hitch, which requires 15" between the top and lower pins. The fabricator made a removable drop-hitch adapter that put the top pin in the same vertical plane as the lower pins and dropped it to meet the I-match dimensional requirements. It is necessary to remove this new drop-hitch when changing drive belts.
Before starting it up for the first time I did a once-over, greasing everything and tightening all the bolts. Boy am I glad I did! The main shaft off the pto rotates in two bearing pillow blocks, each of which is held in place by two bolts. One of these four nuts was missing and another was very loose! This could have been disastrous. A trip to three hardware stores finally turned up the 14mm 1.5 pitch metric nuts that were required. Unfortunately, one of the grease zerks broke off during this maintenance so I'll have to fix that.
Once this work was complete I hooked the chipper up to the 3-point hitch and discovered that the included pto shaft was at least 12" too short! A new pto shaft was purchased and cut to size and I was up and running.
The first item fed into the chipper was a dry 10 foot 2" thick douglas fir tree. I was amazed at how easily the chipper pulled the tree into and through the chipper and voila, it was gone. The blower blew chips into a fairly small pile with good force, so it would be easy to place the chips directly into a wheelbarrow or small cart. The next tree was about 3" thick. This was fed into the chipper without raising the feed roller which caused the feed roller to jam (due to loose belt) and the cheap chinese belt started squealing and smoking. I lifted the feed roller and it then grabbed the tree and pulled it right through. Very impressive, but I had to do something about that belt.
Removal of the feed roller belt cover was fairly simple, and revealed the gearbox and belt adjustment and clutch mechanism. While installing the replacement NAPA A-36 belt I decided to drain the chinese oil out of the gearbox and replace it with some fresh gear oil. The old oil was pretty sickly looking and after draining it there were some fine metal particles in the pan so changing it was a good call. Reassembly was easy and the new belt was adjusted good and tight.
After using it extensively for five hours or so I must say that I'm very impressed. It handled everything we through at it, at least a couple dozen Douglas Fir trees and a lot of pruned deadwood. The largest material run through it was about 6" thick and the chipper didn't have any trouble with it but 25 pto hp is a bit marginal for material that large. It was amazing to put some 25-30 foot 5" trees through the chipper, without limbing them first, and have them gobbled right up. Trees that large required a little pushing since the feed roller didn't quite have the bite to pull them through with all the side branches. The wide feed chute helps immensely with this situation but these small chippers can only handle so much. They are not the 200 hp monsters that are used commercially.
Near the end of the day I screwed up and backed the chipper into a stump that I couldn't see from the drivers seat. The base of the chipper was bent fairly badly but it didn't affect operation, and it looks like its an easy piece to unbolt and flatten out. Oops.
Overall, I'd say this chipper is an exceptional value. Parts availability was a concern, but most of the parts can be bought off the shelf. In fact the manual that comes with the machine lists North American part numbers for many components - bearings, belts, and pulleys are all off-the-shelf items at most industrial supplies. A rumor is floating around that the blades have been cross referenced to those of another manufacturer, but I have not validated this yet. My dealer has no trouble supplying spare blades though, and he says the few parts that are proprietary are available but there may be a wait on them.
If you are looking for a turnkey chipper with strong dealer support this one may not be for you, but if you're not afraid to do some of your own maintenance and repairs I'd highly recommend this chipper.
