DK2 POWER by Marlon 5-Inch 9.5 HP 277 cc Kinetic Chipper

It is fine till it’s not. It is underpowered for the size of the opening. It slows down significantly when using on the upper end of the size limit. Bolts on blades fractured off and destroyed the drum.

We bought the chipper following the recent ice storm that was the grande finale of a very unfortunate winter for our white pines. Delivery was next day. The chipper was easy to assemble. It starts on the first pull and It is powerful enough that it pulls itself over if you feed too slowly. On larger limbs it does bog down but has yet to stall. Many years ago we did have a 3" chipper/shredder that would have been useless on this property. We have saved ourselves thou$and$ in clean up. I would definitely recommend this product.

very happy with the performance but the documentation is lacking. Not much in the way of maintenance - grease zerks on drum bearings but no grease type, quantity, or intervals - drum blades can be reversed but no mention of the gap to set to - no info on belt tension or how to tension - confusing information on clutch/gear case, some say part of engine oil but other documentation for the 395 show separate oil and interval as well as saying both 2:1 and 6:1 reduction gear case. Good engine documentation from Kohler but for the gearcase, belt drive, and drum maint it is lacking.

Very robust machine. Arrives well packaged. It’s heavy, so get some help with assembly. Use the on-line assembly manual so you can zoom in on the photos. Started right up. I bogged it down with some four to five inch branches, but it never stalled and somehow kept on chewing. We are very happy with the resulting wood chips.

I had this delivered a week ago. This is a really robust and solid unit. It started first pull. It is well designed and goes through branches really efficiently. While I haven't run a 5 inch trunk through it, I have done 4 inch trunks and it chips them with minimal slowdown. I transport it around my property behind my lawn tractor. Having read another review about towing it, I had no such problem but I did take it easy. It really is built to last. I think it is a 5 star product but I found the documentation to be lacking a bit. I would recommend a lot more detail. Even Google or YouTube doesn't have great information and you are left trying to figure the best way to assemble certain things. The user manual really needs more. Just one example: It tells you to use 10W30 oil in the engine. The Kohler engine manual tells you that 10W30 oil must be replaced after 5 hours of use, and then every 100 hours. It also tells you that if you use the Kohler 10W50 synthetic oil instead, you don't have to replace it for 300 hours. That should be in the User Guide. Given the weight of this thing, I opted for the synthetic. A decent YouTube video on assembly would be nice too. Having said that, I muddled through it and it works beautifully. I am really happy with this purchase.