kubota v. cat v. john deere controls

[Anonymous Poster]

Okay, it's really bugging me. I drive case backhoes, so I'm a little out of tune with what controls are what on excavators. I first started driving kubota B20's, the hoe controls are like this:

Left stick
-back and forth= up and down of hoe
-left and right= swinging of the hoe, or cab for excavator I think

Right stick
-back and forth= in and out of dipper
-left and right= bucket control

Is there any brand of excavator that has controls like that? I would be soooo happy. Thanks

Blake
WA

 

[ScottAR]

Most excavators made in the last ten years or so can be either way. Just a matter of what the operator (or the boss) wants. JD/hitachi comes standard in that pattern. Cat/Case/Komatsu/Kobelco use the right stick for the boom.
On the Cats you switch a bolt on the valvebody for a different hole and it's the JD pattern. Some machines are even easier to switch. The Bobcat minis have a lever in the cab that switches it. HTH

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Okay, cool. Becuase the guy who was operating a Tackeuchi (however you spell it) was really weird. The left stick controled the swing and the in and out of the dipper. The right one controlled the up and down of the hoe and the bucket control. Very confusing to me.

Blake
WA

P.S. Thanks again Scott for sharing your knowledge! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Taylortractornut]

Gry market machines have a weird pattern some on backhoe attachment on there loaders have the bucket curl on the left stick and you pull it back to curl the bucket. the swing on there excavators is on the left hand youpush forwards and backwards for the swing like in an old friction crane. the crowd is left and right where swing should be, and the right hand controls are like ours and sometimes reversed. THey had a 100 Komatsu on the lot the other day the sales man didnt inform me that it was Asian controlls i let it warm up and someone had left the automatic idle on high i went to run the crowd and when i did it flew wide open and swung into there fork lift. the salesman then asked me how much id charge to fix the pilot controls back.

 

[jtn]

Ahhhhh, the age old Deere vs. SAE pattern difficulties. As someone who was raised on the Deere pattern (boom on left) my first few times in an excavator were kind of hairy. Seems kind of funny but now I am used to the SAE pattern (boom on right) in an excavator. I got in a Komatsu with the backhoe pattern and it was pretty bad.

You are right on the money as to which has what pattern. Most now have a pattern changer like you describe. The new Deere G-series backhoes with the optional pilot controls have a switch in the cab that changes the pattern from Deere to SAE as do some of the Cat excavators. It seems unlikely that either will emerge as the dominant pattern in the near future.

JT

 

[Taylortractornut]

JT theres something about the way an excavator is set up withthe boome desing that makes it more comfortable to run in the ISO pattern standard. One thing its the grade work most are used for deep trenches that the most important 2 functions on digging grade is the oist and the bucket curl. I hatee the rental store deere beccause im always having to change it back over the the excavator pattern even though i like running a backhoe in the regualar pattern. It just seems more comfortable for one to be one way and the other different. I started running both types of machines when i was 12, i can go from 4 stick hoe to 3 stick to wobble stick then to an excavator and then up to a few different crane controls. I ran a Kobelco crane last month for a freind and in a crane the smooth ness is controlled with throttle and lever movements. Downside in most cranes you have a foot throttle either Toe or Heal contrlos the Kobelco has a twist throttle like a bike. It took a second to get used to.