Fecon FTX148-L demo

[Gamma]

I attended a demo today for the new Fecon FTX148-L and I was pretty impressed (although I'm no expert on mulching machines). It had a Fecon BullHog BH85 head with carbide teeth. I took lots of pictures and video too that I'll post here and on YouTube.

I actually got to operate it for at least half an hour and it was awesome! The operators cab is very quite and very comfortable while at full throttle and mulching, it was no problem at all to listen to the built in stereo. I thought the cab was pretty darn spacious actually, and the pressurization and filter system worked great. Visibility was somewhat hindered by the metal brush guard in front of the windshield though. My eyes kept wanting to focus on it and not further out in front of it where I should have been. I think eventually I'd of gotten use to it though.

I really liked the fact that with the loader arms you could raise the mulching head up higher than the top of the cab to cut off a tree top and then grind what's left of the tree down vertically while it's still standing in place so you don't have to chase it around on the ground.

One thing that I was surprised about was it's weight. It only weighs 16,300 lbs. with the BullHog head mounted on it. That's only 2,000 lbs. more than an ASV PT100 with the smaller BH74 head on it.

One note: In the videos you'll see the FTX148-L taking on a tree and it's stump, and while doing so you'll see the rotor in the head stall out numerous times. It was pretty obvious that it was due to the person operating the machine and not the actual equipment causing the stalling. He was at times just jamming the head into the stump and that rotor would stop.

So on to the pictures and videos. The videos are sometimes hard to look at, my camera had something funky going on with it today. I think because I didn't have the sun behind me that it was messing with the metering in my camera and causing the video to be too bright.

Some exterior shots follow:

 

[Gamma]

Here's a few of inside the cab:

 

[Gamma]

Here's some shots with the cab tilted forward and the engine compartment open:

Video of the cab being lowered with the electric/hydraulics:

 

[Robbie Hegwood]

Great pictures!! It looks like an extremely well thought out tractor. I watched a video of it run on the fecon website and it seemed to suffer some of the gyrotrac similarities. It pitched forward when suddenly stopped or if the head was over a foot or two off the ground. Did you encounter any of that? Also what was there reply to the track repair, cost, and longjevity? Just it looks alot like the gyro setup and that was a complaint from there larger tractors.

 

[Gamma]

Robbie,

It did look very well thought out, especially under the cab where the pumps were and inside the engine compartment. Such a huge difference compared to a skidsteer based mulching machine.

Yes, it did pitch forward when stopping suddenly or when moving the head up/down quickly. You can actually see it do this in one of the videos that I have to post still. Isn't this quite common though on skidsteer based mulchers? There is afterall a 2,000+ pound mulching head hanging several feet in front of it.

I myself didn't hear anything related to track repairs or cost. They did tell us that they will be coming out with an optional steel track system this summer for the machine.

They also pointed out that they use an all metal drive sprocket instead of a plastic toothed sprocket. Also something about how the metal brackets on the track that are used for guiding the rubber wheels, have a vertical inner face instead of an angled face like GyroTrac uses??? This helps keep the track from beind 'walked' off the wheels by sticks and rocks???

Yep, I've always thought that the track system looks very similar to GyroTrac.

 

[Gamma]

Here's the FTX148-L mulching some small trees and brush.

 

[Gamma]

Thought I'd post some pictures of the Bobcat T320 that they brought out there too with a BH74 head on it that they'd installed the knives on. I didn't take them up on their offer to operate the T320, it had foot controls and I've never used them before.

 

[Gamma]

Here's a video of the FTX148-L taking down a good sized tree. It sure smelled good when it was grinding on it!! Just like back in high school shop class! lol

(Oh yeah, the guy operating it didn't really know what he was doing)



Here's another where he's grinding up the stump from the first tree:


Taking down a second tree:

 

[cbturf]

The guy sure doesn't know what he's doing, but everyone has to learn sometime. One thing I noticed while watching the video was how fast the head recovered when he did stall it. Another thing that was diferent than my 140 was that he stalled the head and did not kill the engine.

 

[Gamma]

cbturf,

There were several times that he jammed the head down so fast that it tore the wood to pieces instantly, & instantly stopped the rotor. After the chips and dust would clear, you could see huge chunks of wood wedged in the head that were keeping the rotor from spinning back up. Of course the operator couldn't see that the rotor wasn't spinning and he'd try to re-engage the wood and then he'd figure it out. He was smart enough to roll the rotor against the log or ground in order to spin the stuck pieces or wood out.

You're right, the engine never did stall, even when I wasn't recording video.

 

[Gamma]

Here's the final video I have of the demo. The two trees that were taken down are being ground up.

 

[Robbie Hegwood]

Well I should have just stuck with the pictures. I still think it's a well built tractor that should cover alot of different job requirements.
But I'm not impressed with it's performance. With what it is and the power something doesn't add up. When he was mulching the tree on the ground the head was not handling the material well at all. I have seen less H.P. be that efficent. No I was not at the demo and I only have minimal facts so maybe there is something major I'm missing.
Any way. Just my .02 cents and obversations.

 

[Robbie Hegwood]

About pitching. A skid steer will get upset if you put it on too much of an incline or soft ground. You can also feel it when you raise the head up high but it does not rock forward up on it's front wheels as the gyro and this fecon do. From what I can tell it's just a tradeoff for the low ground pressure new track system. If you needed that track system specifically I guess the rockiness would be out weighted by the benifits. I personally don't like a 15k plus tractor being unstable. It is also hard to control the heads cutting height with the tractor moving that much.

 

[JDPN]

Well I should have just stuck with the pictures. I still think it's a well built tractor that should cover alot of different job requirements.
But I'm not impressed with it's performance. With what it is and the power something doesn't add up. When he was mulching the tree on the ground the head was not handling the material well at all. I have seen less H.P. be that efficent. No I was not at the demo and I only have minimal facts so maybe there is something major I'm missing.
Any way. Just my .02 cents and obversations.

i don't think (by the sound in the video and the cutterhead's speed) they were running it at full throttle. Maybe that would give a performance gain.....

 

[cbturf]

I would guess that the operator is not used to the machine. When I ran the 148 I could not hear the engine and hydraulics like I can in the 140 and I was not able to keep the performance up. Heck I am still pretty slow on the 300 because of the differences of what I am in from what I am used to. I am willing to bet that the 148 is a good and productive machine once the operator gets experience.

 

[Gamma]

The 148 is very quite inside the cab, I couldn't tell if the rotor was spinning until I engaged some wood with it and saw the chips fly. I don't think I could even notice the engine noise increase when I went from idle up to about 2400 rpm's, which was as I as I could throttle it up to.

From what the Fecon guys were telling us, that 148 was only the sixth one to come off the assembly line. And I think it had come to the demo straight from the big equipment show in Vegas. I don't think it had ever even seen dirt or brush before, there wasn't a scratch on it when the demo started. I forgot to look at the hour meter too, so the hours might have been very low. Maybe it needed some tweeking and adjustments made to it still?

 

[Terra Firma Scott]

theres is no way that thing was throttled up.the last video was better ..the first vid i was wondering if it was mulching at idle...I'd say that my tiny 60 horse skid blows more chips than that first vid!! lol...Id like to see it run near wide open.....sounded like very low engine speed and drum speed...understandable for someone to jump into a brand new untapped machine and feel her out....my .02...

nice do-up of the vids and pics/demo...we all live vicariously through them!!! thanx!!!!

 

[undercutter]

Am I correct to assume the big difference in the 140 and the 148 is the head can be raised much higher with the 148?

If so, why did Fecon change to those "whimpy" looking tracks. Most posters here say steel tracks are the ticket, don't they?

Just wondering....

 

[cbturf]

In a word they are "kinda" steel tracks. They are supposed to be pretty tough and work good. They crosslinks are hardened steel held together by two kevlar reinforced rubber belts. At first I was very concerned by the belts until I considered that every one of our cutter heads are run by belts, even the 440 Fecon has belts that turn the head. The crosslinks are hardened steel, the same steel that the regular tracks are made of. The only question that I have is sow well the suspension undercarriage works. I have ran both the 140 nd the 148 and the 148 is at least 98% new. The only thing that I can think of that they share is the head and even they are a little different. When the fecon factory guy was out in NM he said that they did some learning on the 148 on the concrete behind the factory and the tracks just tore up the concrete and showed no wear.