The Ultimate Logging Skid Steer/CTL

[Okrafarmer]

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I'm not sure what everybody's in a wad about. I agree that the operator is the key ingredient for effective machinery utilization. A good operator is very valuable. A poor "driver" is a liability. I don't think anyone was trying to say otherwise.

A good operator can operate a piece of crap machinery and make it work. I've done that since I was 8 years old. A good operator can be even more productive on a machine that does more, does it better, is easier to operate, etc.

All I am trying to do with my moveable ballast system idea, is to make a good machine even better. I'm talking about taking a machine of a certain weight, size, footprint, and maneuverability and making it more effective without making larger or heavier. That is why I said to look into carbon fiber in the boom and cab to save weight up high in the air. My second idea, of moving the entire frame forward and backward on the track frames, would do even better at saving weight and getting more done for a similar weight.

The lighter a machine is, the easier it is to transport, the less damage it does to a forest environment, the less it costs to buy and operate, etc. The smaller (in terms of outside dimensions) a machine is, the more tight spaces it can wiggle into and out of. The shorter the tracks are, the less it tears things up when it turns and the less wear and tear on the tracks-- BUT the less stable it is. So, if we want more maneuverability, we shorten the tracks. If we want more stability, we lengthen the tracks. If we want more traction, we lengthen the tracks. But the longer they are, the less maneuverable. So shifting the weight backward and forward on the tracks is a way to get more load capacity in a smaller, cheaper, more maneuverable package. A chance to do the same amount of work as a larger, more expensive machine that burns more fuel and does more collateral damage to the forest environment. 

[Okrafarmer]

I agree that provision for a rear and.or front winch would be very welcome. A drawbar, and rear hydraulic outlets would also be very good. But as someone pointed out, if you use a regular old CTL for pulling things, you are very light on the front unless you pick up a counterweight.

It should be pretty obvious that the exhaust needs to be well protected. Many skidsteers and CTL's have this feature already. Also, the boom, cab, etc. need to be very streamlined and strong to scoot under limbs, especially while backing up. Some current loaders are fairly good about this already. Lights need to be very well protected, as on any forestry equipment.

[barbender]

I don't think any of the current rubber track undercarriages are tough enough for true logging work (the tracks themselves).

[Okrafarmer]

I don't think any of the current rubber track undercarriages are tough enough for true logging work (the tracks themselves).

Probably so. And there is always room for improvement, anyway! Logging is about the worst terrain for one of these to work in, except for demolition, metal recycling, or fire fighting.

[amberwood]

just looking at the CAT 299D steel undercarriage. uses D3 components on 12" plates. 106hp. all up machine weight with decent sized log grapple or 4:1 bucket close to 6500kg.

DTR

[Okrafarmer]

That much power really isn't enough for something that heavy, especially hydrostatic driven and running high-capacity hydraulic equipment.

[okmulch]

I don't think any of the current rubber track undercarriages are tough enough for true logging work (the tracks themselves).

The cat 287c I run every day over stumps carrying trees in and out of woods holds up well. I had to change the first set of tracks and drive sprocket bushings with a little over 2000 hours on them. So far have not had to change any wheels or bogeys.
The Cat dealer says I put these loaders in some of the harshest environments they have seen skid steers used in. I have told the dealer if they need testing done I would be glad to do it.

What if your ballast malfunctions at the worst time possible? I still think the expense of safety systems and engineering do not out way the benefits of knowing your machine and just making sure you get the machine that works for what applications you will be doing.

[Bandmill Bandit]

Okra the minute you start adding systems that move things around that need to be solid you are adding unnecessary weight and mechanical systems that need to maintained and FIXED besides destabilizing the unit.

on a combine your idea could work well but you have a quarter section to turn em around not 64 square feet and most of the weight is high any way. Very good idea here.

ABS is not needed on a skid steer type machine.

Amber wood take a look at the RT210 be or you buy. While the 299C is a good unit I think the RT 210 trumps it but I have not had the opportunity to run them side by side. I do know that Gehl undercarriage has a lot more substance to it. Bigger sprockets, wider rollers bigger planetaries. track looks to be tougher but would have to wear em out side by  side. I like the operator platform control lay out and seat much better and visibility is the best of any of the latest models I have been on in the last year. That includes Case, Cat289C, John Deere, Bobcat, Takeuchi and Gehl.

I looked at specs on both just now and to be fair the RT210 compares to the 279/289 in the Cat line up. 

[sjfarkas]

One more thing.  we need a fire system on the machine.  I think a foam system for the engine.  Then a place to mount a shovel where it wont get ripped off.

[barbender]

Okmulch, 2000 hours is very good sevice life, especially in that enviroment. That machine uses the ASV/Terex undercarriage, correct? On our asphalt paving prep crew, we were usually getting 1000 hours, whether the ASV u/c on our Cat 287 or the Case CT450. My understanding is that a lot of the mulching/clearing crews locally were only getting 500 hours on an ASV u/c, one big outfit quit running them and were trying out other brands. As a side note, our Cat was the original prototype 287, ASV in Grand Rapids put it together and we ended up with it in a trade for parking lot paving ;D It wasn't a 287A, or 287B, just 287 :D Overall, a good machine other than the obvious bugs of it being a prototype. One thing with the outboard drive motors on the asv u/c is the hydraulic hoses tend to get ripped off by sticks.

[barbender]

Okra, I think your concept is interesting. I don't know how you would implement it, especially in the extremeley tight confines of a skid steer bellypan. But we can't innovate if we just leave things the same, can we. For something like that to work, it would have to be dead simple and reliable. What if you get dirt in your bellypan and jam up the works? I can't stress simplicity enough- Ponsse processors use a gyroscope controlled hydraulic cab leveling system, it often ends up bypassed out of frustration. Guys just want to cut wood, not put expensive parts on a system that often doesn't really accomplish much.

[Okrafarmer]

Barbender, it might be better to have the system operator-controlled rather than computer-controlled. I think a simple slide system, sliding the upper portion backward and forward on the lower portion, would be best. It would add some weight compared to a unit not so equipped, but it would be mostly steel/cast iron, and added down low where weight is good. I can picture a rectangular lower frame (solid, with little or no oscilation) fitted with some solid rails that hold the upper portion securely from going any direction other than fore and aft. It can run on whatever type of bearings or slides would work best for the application, and be controlled by a hydraulic cylinder.

By the way, I have seen where some of the piggy-back forklifts carried on flatbed trucks already have a system kind of sort of like I'm talking about. It seems to work for them. I think they move their fork system farther away or closer to the wheeled power unit.

[Cedarman]

Let's say it is a $5000 add on.  How long would it take to pay that back in increased productivity?

[Offthebeatenpath]

Great thoughts,

I have run an ASV in the woods for a number of seasons and have gotten almost 2000 hours out of the tracks.   That said, they could still be a bit more beefy.  In icy conditions, carbide tipped studs help to keep the machine from sliding sideways.  I don't know if you can ever keep these machines from sliding on slippery cross slopes- it seems to me to be the most limiting factor.  I love the track design developed by ASV and incorporated by Cat.  It just doesn't get stuck.

I have also ripped numerous external hydraulic hoses off- encasing them is paramaount for forestry operations.

I run my machine with a rotating grapple in front in electric winch in back.  I would like to have a hydraulic winch on both the front and back.  A strong arch design is key to an effective rear winch.  The photo below shows my homemade version which could be greatly improved upon, especially by adding a roller fairlead and bigger cable.



 

I think counterweights can work well and having an easy way to manually add/remove them could be the most cost effective way to keep the machine balanced when lifting from the front or skidding from the rear.

Jed

[okmulch]

To me making the machine run longer with less down time is what needs to be improved upon. Bigger radiators to keep machine cool. When it is over 90 degrees and I am running our turbo tree saw these loaders over heat quickly which causes me down time.
The hydraulic hose covers that come out of the body and go to the tracks definitely need protection!

I do not know about most of you, but I do most if not all of the maintenance and repairs on my machines. The spaces to work with are all ready tight and small in the belly and you usually have to take several other things off, just to fix what is broke, so the more stuff that you put in the bottoms of these machines the more difficult it will be to work on. To me it would not be worth it, because downtown equals not making money time.

[Okrafarmer]

Let's say it is a $5000 add on.  How long would it take to pay that back in increased productivity?

If using the machine to near full capacity daily, in hilly terrain especially, probably 3-6 months.

Back when I was a kid, I somehow ended up with some college-level "Agricultural Engineering" magazines. One of them, written in the 1980's, had this article about auxiliary four-wheel-drive axles on farm tractors. (tractors that had otherwise been designed as two-wheel-drive, but had four-wheel-drive as an option). The title of the article was entitled "Front Wheel Assist-- Does it Pay Off?" I thought that was interesting. The bean-counting scientists in the article had a very skeptical view of FWA. They did this scientific study where they compared the tractor's fuel efficiency in the field with or without FWA while plowing. The tractors got more done per hour and per gallon of fuel with FWA, but the engineers poo-pooed the whole concept because they said it would take years for a farmer to earn back the additional cost of the powered front axle.

At which point, even as a naive young teenager, I said to myself, "self, those silly engineers have never been to Maine, have they?" The point isn't about how more efficient you can be over time, it is about how many times are you able to "actually do something useful" instead of "trying and failing"? Four wheel drive is not valuable for small increases in efficiency over time. It is extremely valuable for making the difference between "can do" and "can't do" on a daily basis. Stuck tractors, trucks, etc. are a mini crisis that has to be solved. While you are extracting stuck equipment, you are 100% losing time. Also, when dealing with mud, hillside, deep snow, etc, the "can do" factor is critical. If your 2X4 tractor would be incapable, but your 4X4 can do it, it is extremely valuable. The same would be true for a balance system. Any time you can change "can't do" to "can do" you are saving money.

Any time you are in your loader machine (of any type) and you have it teetering on the front wheels or front of its tracks (or back wheels, or back of tracks), you have to go slower and be more careful. But if you are balanced, you can go faster, and get more done, more safely.

If you primarily operate your machines on hard smooth surfaces, such as concrete, you may not need a balance system. Having 90% of your weight on one or the other end of your machine might make little difference for traction and control. But off-road, the issue is much more serious.

A new point I'd like to make is that, if you run with 90% of your weight on the front or the rear quite a bit, there is more stress to those components than there should be. If they are designed to take it, then fine, but it shouldn't be necessary.

Another observation is, I don't think it is good when a machine is capable of lifting enough weight as to lift the rear of the machine off the ground. The Bobcat I run is capable of doing that, barely, and accidents are much more likely to happen when you are teetering. Eliminating the teetering (by more than merely operator judgment) is what I am looking for.

By the way. Another observation about operators. You may rightly say that having a proper operator is the solution for all equipment problems, but I have noticed that proper operators are not always available. Sometimes you just have to get some work done, and a veteran operator is not available. So you have to put someone in there who is less experienced. This happens a lot in the real world. So eliminating as many of the variables for disaster as possible is a good thing.

How many of us would like to go back to the days of steam engines and horse logging and river drives, and try to eke out a living, day after day, year after year, under those conditions? Thankfully, year by year, new safety practices and devices were introduced and now forestry is a lot easier and safer than it was. It's also a lot more efficient.

So let's keep making it safer and more efficient. I think that's what the OP was asking for our input about.

[Okrafarmer]

To me making the machine run longer with less down time is what needs to be improved upon. Bigger radiators to keep machine cool. When it is over 90 degrees and I am running our turbo tree saw these loaders over heat quickly which causes me down time.
The hydraulic hose covers that come out of the body and go to the tracks definitely need protection!

I do not know about most of you, but I do most if not all of the maintenance and repairs on my machines. The spaces to work with are all ready tight and small in the belly and you usually have to take several other things off, just to fix what is broke, so the more stuff that you put in the bottoms of these machines the more difficult it will be to work on. To me it would not be worth it, because downtown equals not making money time.

Well said. Small diesel equipment, across the board, is difficult to maintain. I will vouch for that. Ease of maintenance and repair, and reliability of all components, really needs to be paramount in any improved model introduced.

My philosophy for good equipment is that there should only ever be about 5-10 components per machine that ever break. These should be designed to be the weak link, and should be replaceable in the field in less than an hour. An example on a gear drive machine would be a massive shear pin in a drive shaft, designed to take the design stress of the engine and drive train, but to shear if the system is overloaded. It should be easily accessible, so as to replace quickly and easily if failure occurs. Engines and all other major components should be modular and quickly removable and exchangeable.

On track loaders, having the drive motors on the track frame should mean an increase in accessibility and "swapability".  But the drive motor and its supply lines definitely must be well protected from trash and terrain trauma. (TTT).

Too many machines have been built with ease of factory assembly in mind, rather than ease of field maintenance. People need to design machinery from the ground up to be in-field serviceable, under Guadalcanal-like conditions. If they designed machinery like the AK-47 is designed (any dummy can disassemble it and reassemble it, even me) it would be oh so much better. But OH! We can't do that! Some shop mechanics at the dealership might get laid off.  >:(

[Bandmill Bandit]

Then a place to mount a shovel where it wont get ripped off.

You would have to sit on it. That about the only place on the machine that the brush cant get at. :D :D