Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[LGP Eddie]

49 minutes ago, BunyipBen said:

Got me a digger, just need the grab and worm drive rotator to arrive and it will be an Arb one

Worm drives and Arb/De-Veg/Forestry work is a subject in itself and usually an expensive one!?

 

 

Eddie.

[Matthew Storrs]

5 hours ago, LGP Eddie said:

Haven’t a clue why anyone persists on using UK style Quick Hitches and Buckets where they have a clean sheet of paper.

Loads of options for the Scandinavian S type in the UK now even for the smaller machines.

SMP in particular are well worth a look, doing both manual and hydraulic down to the S30/180 size.

 

You won’t find many S type guys going back to conventional.

 

 

Eddie.

I guess you don’t miss what you haven’t had? In a nutshell though what are the advantages of an S couple and the Scandi buckets- I get why on a tilt rotator, but what’s the benefit as an alternative to standard pin grab hitches?

[LGP Eddie]

54 minutes ago, Matthew Storrs said:

I guess you don’t miss what you haven’t had? In a nutshell though what are the advantages of an S couple and the Scandi buckets- I get why on a tilt rotator, but what’s the benefit as an alternative to standard pin grab hitches?

The Scandinavian S type hitch gives a very low build height, generally lower weight as they’re made from top quality materials, rattle free design that takes up any wear automatically, and no hassles with anything fitting as everything is standardised.

 

Buckets are generally lighter, made from better materials and last significantly longer than UK counterparts.

The downside used to be that popular UK sizes weren’t available, and long lead times, but that’s all changed now.

Obviously UK companies have jumped onto doing S type buckets, but take a look at something like an EMA bucket and you’d soon see the difference.

 

Going S type at the initial purchase stage means adding a Tiltrotator later could be an easier option.

 

 

Eddie.

[john meehan]

Got me a digger, just need the grab and worm drive rotator to arrive and it will be an Arb one

The worm drive is painful mate. We just got one and it’s sooooo slow.

[LGP Eddie]

Bit of a Birthday/Milestone today as it’s exactly 10 years since I rounded the last corner at John Craig’s yard to see for the first time the results of sending a brand new Kubota Kx080-3 and some extra bits over the border and letting him put the gas axe to it!

 

To say I was delighted with the results would be an understatement, he’d built something really special and I knew it from the off.

The machines progress is well documented, it went on to do some fantastic projects on many sensitive sites, proving just what a combination these powerful Midi machines and Tiltrotators could be.

 

I shared the trials and tribulations of living with such setups, was absolutely slaughtered on Forums and Social media for obviously being unable to Operate properly and needing a Tiltrotator to mask that fact.

 

Happy to say 10 years on the Kubota despite having done a huge amount of solid graft and being on it’s fourth owner is in safe hands and working almost daily on the same good work.

 

Goes without saying that this Original Wide Boy inspired a few more to tap into the potential of these machines and their chosen attachments, and yes I do enjoy the odd smile as guys who called me for everything back in the day, post up their latest setup complete with Tiltrotator!?

 

I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank John Craig and All his Team at Jcc Group for the fantastic Machines/Attachments they’ve produced over 10 years and always having my back when I needed it most.

 

Fair to say it was ahead of it’s time and would still be a great setup if I was collecting it today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie.

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by LGP Eddie

[BunyipBen]

The worm drive is painful mate. We just got one and it’s sooooo slow.

Is it a trade off worth living with for the strength and ability to hold loads?

[john meehan]

Is it a trade off worth living with for the strength and ability to hold loads?

Depends what you are doing with it I think. Ours is on a smaller machine and it’s just a pain to be honest, takes all the flow from the machine to make it work. We changed the motor and it’s still bad.

With a shear I think it would be grand but we have a 5 ton we with a normal rotator and have no problems with it. If your just feeding a chipper or moving stuff I’d go that route.

[BunyipBen]

The WD9 is the model I am being supplied, it can do 5 revolutions per minute so 12 seconds for a full circle. Not super fast but I am willing to give it a go in the fixed application that is being setup. I would also be interested in a pendulum mount but will wait for now.

[LGP Eddie]

3 minutes ago, BunyipBen said:

 

Is it a trade off worth living with for the strength and ability to hold loads?

 

In my opinion No and I won’t sell them on a Grab or Shear.

 

Quite simply if you want to Rotate a Grab or Shear reliably with a worm drive for consistent hold with all the shock loadings that can occur, then only a Tiltrotator, or the worm drive from one is able to do that.

 

Utilising a lighter duty worm drive for what many describe as positioning an attachment and then trying to limit its use to lighter loadings is fraught with danger.

The time it all goes wrong is when something is trying to get away from you, the loadings ramp up quickly, often with a bit of shock loading and the weakest link of an underspec worm drive is where the motor bolts on.

Basically it’ll blow the motor off and an instant catastrophic failure with no control.

 

The solution is to overspec a standard Rotator which will give in the event of shock loadings, and another route is to utilise a solution more often seen on selector grabs or the like with a slew ring Rotator.

These are not known for solid hold, but by adding in additional motors they can  have power and hold increased to a perfect balance of power/hold/give for such applications, and will give reliable operation without the worry of damage.

This route is ideal for excavators, as the extra motors suck up the higher flows that if not properly regulated kill worm drives.

Not unusual to have four motors sucking up around 80 ltr/min to give good hold/power with a nice controlled break away point.

 

I’ll just leave this example of a genuine Rototilt worm here, it’s not the sort of thing you see on a Potato box tipper!

 

 

 

Eddie 

 

[Canal Navvy]

I'm trying to remember how long ago I first saw an Engcon tilt rotator working at the SED. There did seem to half a dozen of us who spent half of the day watching it and trying to find out what it was ??