The Miller is the best. I worked there throughout college, I have since moved on. If you bought one '06-'10 then I assembled, wired, and plumbed it myself. The other machines are junk for about the same price-meaning those companies either have higher margins or overhead... either way all of the "competition" definitely falls short of the quality and performance of a Miller. Just look at the ones J J posted and compare them to a Miller, LOL! In the pic, the roost isn't even comparable to a chainsaw. Really it's an apples to oranges comparison, the Miller is industrial grade and the others are homeowner models. The stump in the center picture J J posted can be ground to 18" below grade in well under 5 minutes.
2 things:
First: You should know what you are buying.This is a high performance machine, not an auger. It will perform the task with the greatest efficiency and effectiveness, however, it will require maintenance and upkeep on wear items in order to maintain maximum productivity, but when managed correctly this machine is much more profitable than the competition. Plus the engineering and robustness are far superior.
Second: You need horsepower! Fluid power has much more efficiency losses than shaft power (PTO), so you need a lot of horse power to get anything down to the wheel. "GENERALLY" skidsteers can only put about 60% of their engine power to the attachment because of their inefficient gear pumps and other losses along the way. Miller uses an expensive radial piston motor at the wheel which is +90% efficient, maximizing the amount of power to the wheel. So if the unit is mounted on an RC100 you can get at least 50HP to the wheel, which is highly effective. When you get down to about 75 engine HP, the unit is still very effective but not nearly as impressive as when you have a 100HP to play with.
It runs best on an RC 85, 100 or other comparable 80-100HP skidsteer but definitely has to be paired with a skidsteer that has high flow or has the high flow kit: Miller does make an auxiliary high flow kit for the RC 60 that runs an axial piston pump off the crankshaft that enables you to get ~90% of the engine horsepower to the hydraulic motor and then minus about ~8% more there, you can still get 50HP to the wheel. Its about a $5000 kit and you can probably get one made to order for other models but you'd have to call and talk with him about it. There are also models that use a pony motor to run the hydraulic cylinders and save all of the skidsteers power for the wheel. The website doesn't really do justice to the products or advertise all that Miller is capable of. They run about $9500 list price. Don't quote me on any of my rough numbers in this post, just call him if you're interested:
Miller Machine Works 765-659-1524
Stump Cutter Attachments Craft Machine Design
