Cat provides operating tips for excavators used in logging applications.
Cat indicates that a large portion of the owning and operating costs of a tracked forestry machine will be related to the undercarriage. Cat has provided good practice guidelines for operating excavators in different applications. This will help extend the life of undercarriage components. When using an excavator for road construction or maintenance, the following tips apply:
- When traveling quickly forward or for extended distances, the idlers should be leading.
- During heavy lifting and grading, the weight should be placed on the idlers as opposed to other areas of the tracks. During light lifting and grading, weight can be placed on any part of the tracks.
- It is good practice to occasionally lift the tracks slightly to clean soil from bushings. This helps maintain the correct track tension and reduces track indexing due to mud packing.
- Travel should be minimised when there is a heavy lift over the side of the excavator. This is because contact between the shoe and shoe support can wear away the leading edge of shoe and can cause shoe crossing or shoe breakage.
When shovel Logging, the following good practices apply:
- When working downhill, the idlers should be facing downhill so that heavy loads are transferred from the shoes to the links and then the idlers, and not from the shoes to the links to the bushings to the sprockets.
- Do not travel with the grapple full of logs over the side of the machine. This can cause the leading edge of the shoe to contact the shoe supports, wearing away the leading edge much faster.
- Minimise travelling over stumps on the edges of the shoe. If the machine must travel over a stump, approach it in the dead centre of the shoe to minimise shoe deflection or crossing.
In the next issue of Logging-on, we will examine tips for some of the other logging machines. Source: http://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/support/forestry/maximizing-the-lifeofyourundercarriage.html