JCB Hydradig

Pheasant Surprise · Sep 7, 2018

Andrew said:
Exactly what I was thinking. We wrap at the stack so trailer to wrapper to stack, it’s hard on man and machine, all the shunting back and forth.

Don’t know what your budget is Andrew, but if you did wish to explore some ‘non mainstream’ (ok completely off the wall) options, consider having a chat with Tuckwell’s as they've got the agency for....this!

https://www.diverto.com/

H200GT · Sep 7, 2018

Pheasant Surprise said:
Don’t know what your budget is Andrew, but if you did wish to explore some ‘non mainstream’ (ok completely off the wall) options, consider having a chat with Tuckwell’s as they've got the agency for....this!

https://www.diverto.com/

Thats an impressive tool but cant help thinking its a bit of a jack of all trades.

For me its, diggers for digging, handlers for handling

Pheasant Surprise · Sep 7, 2018

H200GT said:
Thats an impressive tool but cant help thinking its a bit of a jack of all trades.

For me its, diggers for digging, handlers for handling

I know what you’re saying, it would be interesting to see how good they actually are at a single tasks, rather than jack of all trades but master of none.

Tomtrac · Sep 7, 2018

Firms that work for the council/highways use them around here and swear by them very handy and good on road no front bucket but better than 3cx
Be good with a wrist on and even better with a telescopic dipper
But defo check out the competition but as you said get a demo of them first nothing like trying them on your own land -jobs

chickens and wheat · Sep 7, 2018

theres one round here that cuts hedges, Seems like it would take some driving while hedging with the cab angled off the direction of travel, but the operator seems to do a fine job and doesnt run over everyone

nick... · Sep 7, 2018

With regards to a tilt rotator the boys who use em reckon they take about 300 hours to get the hang of them.there is no way anyone would jump on a machine and be proficient operating them.ive had a play and made myself look a right tit even though I been running construction equipment for getting on for forty years.they look easy but you have to work in 3D and not 2d and they really confuse your head
Nick...

General-Lee · Sep 7, 2018

nick... said:
With regards to a tilt rotator the boys who use em reckon they take about 300 hours to get the hang of them.there is no way anyone would jump on a machine and be proficient operating them.ive had a play and made myself look a right tit even though I been running construction equipment for getting on for forty years.they look easy but you have to work in 3D and not 2d and they really confuse your head
Nick...

Your getting on Nick!

Andrew · Sep 7, 2018

Pheasant Surprise said:
Don’t know what your budget is Andrew, but if you did wish to explore some ‘non mainstream’ (ok completely off the wall) options, consider having a chat with Tuckwell’s as they've got the agency for....this!

https://www.diverto.com/

Looks good but sadly lacking on lift height and capacity.

nick... said:
With regards to a tilt rotator the boys who use em reckon they take about 300 hours to get the hang of them.there is no way anyone would jump on a machine and be proficient operating them.ive had a play and made myself look a right tit even though I been running construction equipment for getting on for forty years.they look easy but you have to work in 3D and not 2d and they really confuse your head
Nick...

But if the machine was there with bale fork on could they get on and drive it like a telehandler to load / unload a load of bales, ignoring the slew and steel wrist and other bits and bobs, leave those for one good operator?

v8willy · Sep 8, 2018

Mursal said:
Always thought rubber ducks were out of their depth when you take them off the tarmac.

If you go to the continent it's full of ducks, wouldn't see tracks, see them sitting in fields loading dung.

Shovelhands · Sep 8, 2018

@Andrew i think you’ve got a great idea here, in theory.

You’ll have a real Swiss Army knife of a tool. Which would excel at some tasks, and do what a Telehandler can’t. But it will also never do exactly what a Telehandler excels at. Your never going to get the lift height of a 535-95. And picking up more than one big bale at a time is going to be asking a lot of it I’d imagine.

Having said that, for some of the tasks you have in mind, it could be a stroke of genius.

Remember that the Hydradig is unique, there’s nothing actually quite like it, compact, 40k, visibility is second to none. You can’t really compare it to a bigger duck.

I am wondering if you actually need a tilt rotator, or if you’d get away with just a rotator? But I’m not sure.

I think you’d be well advised to hire one, plenty of big hire firms have them, HE Services do, not sure if Lamberts do? But I’m sure you can hire one, hopefully you can get one with a tiltrotator on it. It would be worth finding an old Q Fit carriage, and having a headstock fitted to it, so you can use your current attachments, I know this will cost some money to do, but if you do go for it, without really trying the concept, then it could cost way more in the long run! You NEED to know this works for you.
Hire it for several weeks, a month or more at least. That’s why a demo just won’t cut it, an operator fresh to the idea will just not master it on a demo.

I also think you will need to have a dedicated operator on it, to really get the best out of it, I might be wrong, and all your ops may get the hang of it in five minutes, but I think that’s optimistic. That’s why hiring one for an extended period will be a good idea, everyone can try it out, you’ll soon know if they like the idea and are willing to put the effort in to master it.

I really like your initial idea though

Mursal · Sep 8, 2018

nick... said:
Ive had a play, even though I been running construction equipment for getting on for forty years.they look easy but you have to work in 3D and not 2d and they really confuse your head

Ah, but a few hours away from everyone, down the field, you'd be dead on. I'll have to get a go one one, not that many about as the JCB 3C's never had them.

Asking a lot just jumping on ........

Andrew · Sep 8, 2018

@Shovelhands Don't really need the height of a 95, we'd have 2 others for high stacking, but at this time of year we need a machine that will load bales from chaser stacks onto lorries. Ideally that means picking up 3x 4x4s or 4x 4x3s (2t ish) from a height of 4m (to the qfit brackets on the bale grab) down and put on the deck of a lorry. Doesn't matter if it takes a bit longer than a 95, as long as the lorry drivers could cope with it (even if they drove it like a tractor and front end loader). According to the brochure this should be doable.

In the spring I'm sure our usual driver would get proficient with it, to be a huge benefit wrapping silage at the stack,

I have an old Q fit carriage so that wouldn't be a problem, I think a demo first to make sure I don't absolutely hate the idea / it does what we want, then we can hire a machine after that.

Shovelhands · Sep 8, 2018

Definitely give it a try @Andrew , it could be ideal, but I think it’s unrealistic to expect it to pick up circa 2t, on the wrong side of the dipper so to speak, it may do it with the TAB pulled right in, but I think it’s optimistic.
Don’t forget the weight of the attachment, and if you do run it with tiltrotator, then that alone will be circa 500kg minimum, add the Q Fit and grab and you will have a ton on the end before you pick anything up.

If the concept works, you may have to think about a dedicated grab to save weight, and also move bales individually, or smaller ones in pairs, in the right situation cycle times could be quite fast, so you’d not loose much time by not moving so many bales in one go.

Also remember it will not pick up so much across carriage as it will inline.

I still think with the right operator this could be a winner, expecting a truck driver to jump on it and load himself, I’m really not sure about that if I’m honest.

Pheasant Surprise · Sep 8, 2018

Shovelhands said:
Don’t forget the weight of the attachment, and if you do run it with tiltrotator, then that alone will be circa 500kg minimum, add the Q Fit and grab and you will have a ton on the end before you pick anything up.

I think you’re spot on there. The difference between a machine really designed for digging rather than outright lifting.

Also the nature of a 360, twin stick control machine means that a ‘general’ operative can’t just jump on and be immediately safe and productive as they would a tractor or tele.

SeatWarmer · Sep 8, 2018

Andrew said:
Yeah seen them, all very impressive but it’d spend most of it’s life with a Q fit carriage on treated as another forklift, with 6 different drivers hopping on and off between it and other machines, not sure we’d ever get the best of it?

Multiple in-experienced drivers will end in disaster. You would need 1 driver on it all the time, especially with a steel wrist/rototilt. Even the most experienced tracked machine operators take a good few hours to adjust to a steel wrist and that's when they're using it day in day out full time. Mastering it takes weeks if not months.

Loading bales, especially silage at a wrapper, swinging round with the weight transfers that also occur with a steel wrist is going to have the machine on its side. Plus if they're decent silage bales a hydradig will struggle to lift them out to any great distance. The idea is right, no moving like with a telehandler but if you want to do silage you're going to be far safer with a larger tracked machine. Hydradigs and ducks in general are not the machines to use when swinging heavy loads from side to side, even less so when the pressures on and operators can be tired.

Pheasant Surprise · Sep 8, 2018

Mursal said:
Ah, but a few hours away from everyone, down the field, you'd be dead on. I'll have to get a go one one, not that many about as the JCB 3C's never had them.

Asking a lot just jumping on ........

You’d be surprised. They take one heck of getting your head and hands to use without ‘thinking’. I’m 3 months in and just now starting to get properly proficient.

Andrew · Sep 8, 2018

Shovelhands said:
Definitely give it a try @Andrew , it could be ideal, but I think it’s unrealistic to expect it to pick up circa 2t, on the wrong side of the dipper so to speak, it may do it with the TAB pulled right in, but I think it’s optimistic.
Don’t forget the weight of the attachment, and if you do run it with tiltrotator, then that alone will be circa 500kg minimum, add the Q Fit and grab and you will have a ton on the end before you pick anything up.

If the concept works, you may have to think about a dedicated grab to save weight, and also move bales individually, or smaller ones in pairs, in the right situation cycle times could be quite fast, so you’d not loose much time by not moving so many bales in one go.

Also remember it will not pick up so much across carriage as it will inline.

I still think with the right operator this could be a winner, expecting a truck driver to jump on it and load himself, I’m really not sure about that if I’m honest.

True, the grabs I build are 400kg but could easily put brackets on one so it could go straight on the dipper. If I'm reading the brochure right it will have similar lift to our H340 loader which just manages. Wouldn't expect every truck driver to load themselves, just our 2 drivers who load themselves most of the time anyway.

SeatWarmer · Sep 8, 2018

I drove a 13t JCB with rototilt and with the forks on facing away from the dipper it struggled to lift a tonne with the extra weight of the attachments. Remember the SWL is based on the machine with no bucket on, so you have to take all attachments into account and also the distance from the centre of the machine. A 13t with no attachments will still going to struggle to lift more than a tonne at full reach and that's a fully tracked machine which is far more stable than a duck

ste stuart · Sep 8, 2018

What everyone is saying about the weight you want to lift and lifting capacity of an outstretched excavator are quite right.
I will however say don't underestimate the speed of the cycle times, looking at that jd and loader, by the time you've grabbed your three bales, gingerly backed round the wagon, lifted them on and got back round to the stack a decent 360 driver will have got 3 if not 4 individual bales on without breaking a sweat.

General-Lee · Sep 8, 2018

Pheasant Surprise said:
You’d be surprised. They take one heck of getting your head and hands to use without ‘thinking’. I’m 3 months in and just now starting to get properly proficient.

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