Excavator power pack

[mesatreeco]

Just finished 15 hrs of mulching with a power unit I built for a "midi" excavator
Running an AFE RDM 34
power unit is a Deutz 4 cyl 54 hp running a Rexroth variable pump
plummed directly to head

Surpassed all of my expectations!

Now, to keep it busy, any suggestions?

 

[cat 297c]

Best advice I could give u is every job u get make them look great. An word of mouth goes a long ways, an put some business cards in local parts houses, restaurants etc. Websites are great to but by far word of mouth is your best bet.
I've been wanting a mid ex with power pack and head. Love to see video of yours running. Looks great hope u keep her busy!

 

[fishfactor]

Looks good! You may want to add some guarding around your powerpack.

Is that a new head? I noticed it doesn't have any bullet teeth on the bottom of the disc, just the thumb nail teeth. Ours also has the bullet teeth, but it's a RDM44.

It will take some practice to get clean results with the head, but once you get the technique down you will like it even more. It's great to be able to move logs, rocks, piles or metal, refrigerators, and everything else you find in the woods and not worry about bending up the head. We can pull smaller stumps with ours, shake off the dirt, then mulch the stump.

Concentrate on ditches, pond dams, creek banks, etc. Keep a before/after picture log to show potential customers.

 

[mulcherguy]

Nicely done!
Perhaps you could identify the situations where your equipment will outperform other methods and shoot some video of it in action. You could email your footage to more established contractors in your district that may need the specific abilities of your machine on portions of their contracts.
For instance a conventional mulcher contractor may have a job that has areas that are inaccessible for their machine to drive over. Limbs overhanging a fence line, steep drainage ditches with growth in them, rocky outcrops, boulders with trees/brush all around them?
I can recall a job we did for BC Hydro in the mountains near Whistler BC. The area to be mulched was quite steep and had lots of washout ditches coming down the slope. They were full of trees and I had to rent an excavator with a thumb to clean them out. The trees had to be grabbed and brought up onto flat,rock free ground to be mulched. Your machine could have reached down and mulched the trees up where they were growing and would have cost less. Generally the washouts were only 3 to 6 feet deep but were full of exposed rocks. Of course this particular job only required for the remaining pieces to be smaller then 2 meters (6 feet) in length for the sake of cost. Clearing under remote power lines often does not require mulching right into the ground.
I would be looking in areas where conventional mulchers can not function efficiently such as rocky terrain or ditches. There are alot of power utilities in Western Canada that still use men with chainsaws to drop small trees and just buck them up. Also fire hazard reduction contracts may be a good fit?

 

[mulcherguy]

Just an additional thought to fishfactors guarding recommendation. If it is an air cooled engine you may wish to experiment with screens that minimize debris and dust from getting into the cooling fins and blocking airflow. I have seen one matchbox size chip create a hotspot on a 912 and ruin a basically new engine.

 

[mesatreeco]

Thanks guys for the input,

Just logged 8 hrs on a fuel break for the county. Colby, I see what you mean about getting to know the machine - my productivity increased two fold from 8 hrs ago, also chip quality has improved drastically

One major design flaw to address - blade hits hyd tank when all the way up:confused2: One good swing with the blade completely up would be disasterous

Re: guards and screens: I was very surprised how little debris and dust makes it to the machine, ran with the cab open all day, air cleaners show no dirt. not like a
skid steer type head that puts you right in the thick of it. Tank is the most exposed part of the machine therefor I built it out of 10 guage, need to work up a guard for the oil cooler on the deutz though


I had a friend meet me and get some good footage of the machine for youtube, got a really interesting shot with a camera mounted on the lower boom pointing at the cutter wheel while cutting, should be interesting. Ill pass along the link when its completed

Here are a few photos of the days work:

First shot, completed break - three passes.

Second shot, first pass heading down blind and steep, took a little getting used to. chip quality looked like **** but improved considerably as the day progressed, also got better at tracking without ripping the place up

Third shot, collateral damage, oops!

Fourth and fith shot, dressing up the road on the way out

 

[mesatreeco]

Fishfactor,

Here is a shot of the top of the 34 Gen-3 Has quadco teeth on top as well as opposing quadco teeth (5) mounted stationary to the inside of the housing opposing the disc teeth, you can just make out the bolt heads on the discharge side of the housing. not sure when he started with this setup

As you can see, thumbnail teeth (carbides) on top share the same pockets
as buttom teeth

Also,
Another shot of yesterdays effort around noon following first pass and a little roadside work

 

[fishfactor]

Looks the same as ours except a little smaller and we have the bullet teeth and thumbnail teeth on bottom. Ours was built last July/August. Try to engage small trees with the 10 o'clock portion of the disc. With practice you will be able to cut them off however high you can reach, and suck the top of the tree into the shroud on top of the disc at the same time. It helps to slow the disc down if you can with your setup. Ours is ran off of the pilot control so we can run at any RPM we want just by adjusting how hard you press the pedal. This really speeds things up vs chasing all of your tops after they hit the ground. Same principal, even when material is on the ground try to get it into the shroud on top of the disc instead of using the bottom. The opposing quadco teeth are much quicker.

 

[mesatreeco]

Fishfactor,

How slow do you run the head?

I have several options to increase/decrease pressure and flow as well as
engine RPM. I was trying to go over this with Jon at AFE but, as mentioned,
he was not too responsive post sale. Love to hear what you have learned

Currently running 3500 psi pump cutout (bypass)
Full volume, guessing 28+gpm, no load, (depending who you talk to)
at 1800 - 2000 rpm (max rated torque range for deutz)

Not sure how all that translates to a aux flow system on your Cat,
I think your system pressure is designed to operate at 5500 psi
Can you figure your flow at optimium cutter rpm?

 

[fishfactor]

We adjust it constantly depending on what we are doing, but it's just a matter of how hard you push the pedal for us. We very seldom run it wide open unless we're cutting big material.

At high RPM, it wants to just cut. If you slow it down a little it will try to pull the material into the shroud a little more. So you can speed up by slowing down.

So, basically while mulching a 6" diameter tree, we cut through the tree 15 feet or so up at about 50-65% of max RPM. If you get the angle and approach right, you will catch the top of the tree and suck it into the shroud on top of the disc, and discharge mulch. Get back on the flow and continue down on the tree. For softwoods up to 8" and hardwoods up to 4", we typically just use the bottom of the disc and come down on the tree. Hardwoods any larger than 4" and softwoods over 8" we drop down 1-2 feet and cut the tree again. The section you cut off goes into the shroud and comes out mulch. If the prescribed results don't have a mulch size limit, you can drop down 3-4 feet at a time and double your speed.

If clearing a open area, go counterclockwise so any of your tops will fall into the area not cleared. Clear in front of you and to the left. Swing around 180 deg and do the cleanup behind you so you can also fix any ruts you created.

These heads work great for fuel reduction and wildlife habitat because you can easily provide a wide range of chip size based on what the customer wants.