Over the years I have run a lot of different machines with different controls. My old backhoe is a four lever machine that I learned to run by trial and error. Now if I get in a two lever hoe, you don't want to be close when I am trying to dig. Definately not down in the trench like some guys will do with a good operator.
But now the ultimate challenge for this old dog. I learned to run a Valmet Harvester, by trial and error of course, but that machine is finished and I now have a Ponsse Harvester that has very different controls. Most of the crane movement controls are the same, but the head controls are vastly different. Not sure at this point if this old dog can be taught some new tricks.
For example, on the old machine there was a rocker switch to open the knives and feed rolls. You pushed one side to open and the other to close. This Ponsse machine has a little dimpled button, you can guess what the operators call it, that moves four ways. One way is to open the knives and feed rolls and when you want to close them when they are open, you move the button the same way. Now that saves having two positions for the function, but it sure is confusing to my brain. Unfortunately the opposite movement of the button starts the saw. :o So now when I have the grapple open and reach for a tree, just as I get there and want to grab the tree, I push the button in the other direction and instead of grabbing the tree, I try to cut it down. :)
So I am being abused verbally while learning, all by myself. I have been called some bad names in that cab, and I am alone. At least nobody else hears it. :D :D
I don't suppose anyone else has this problem with different machine controls? ;D
Oh yea. When I went from working for one company one day on one mill in 1984 to another company the next. The carriage feed was opposite directions. I had sawn for 5 years one way, and suddenly I have to change. Its tough. Those repetitive movements become imprinted. Even years later I would have a brain fart and have to stop and rewire again. I think its like smoking. Even after 10 years of not smoking, I can find myself reaching for my pocket in a stressful situation.
That first week at billsby lumber there were a lot of logs dumped into the carriage tracks. :)
I would love to have the chance to challenge myself like that. I love that kind of stuff. The most contols i had to run was on a 410EX prentice loader. It had 2 joysticks and toggels on it tfor the delimber and buck saw. I was 22 then and the owner was shocked i picked it up sa fast. Ive ran most brands of skidders and can still mentaly pitchure all the controls in my head.
Must of been all the years of growing up playing Video games. Training my mind. :D
Nother one I had trouble with was going from a Prentice loader with a hand swing to a barko with a foot swing. These all pre-dated the wobble controls you find on most loaders now. The bad thing was when I would reach for the swing on the barko, it was now the open and close on the grapple. :o
We changed the hoses around on the valve body of the Iron Mule so they operated the same as our old backhoe. It was safer than retraining ;) ;D
Not all the changes to newer styles are bad. My first forwarder was a Valmet 644 with levers for controls. It did have a crude foot swing mechanism attached by a rod, but I threw that away. However it was so hard to get much production out of that lever machine and at the end of the day, it felt like my arms were going to fall off cause they ached so bad at my shoulders. The forwarder I have now has joysticks and it is unbelievable how much more you can get done in a day. It does have those big black knobs with buttons over the top and a name that is not politically correct and they require a lot of arm movement, but still not nearly as bad as levers.
The mini joysticks they use now are much better for speed and wear and tear on the shoulders.
I never got to the mini joystick era. I was ruined by the shoulder killin machines.
I know where your coming from Gary C. We would convert machines with mini levers to Supergrip all the time, as nobody wanted to run the mini levers. Now though, people have learned the mini levers, and prefer them to the Supergrip. Before these, we also had the catskull levers (looked like a black mushroom with 2 buttons in the front). The new levers generally have benefits, but take a while to learn. Once you learn to master them though, they are good. I always found it funny that people would complain and insult our product when we upgraded our design, but when JD and/or Cat would go with the same system, it was the best invention ever! ::) Sorry, that's my small rant. :D
I'm sure you can learn to operate them. In this area, most dealers offer operator training. It may seem expensive to the contractor, but the return on investement is worth it.
Many people like to learn alone, but usually having someone to give you pointers speeds up the process.
I know just what you are talking about. I've been there. When you go from a Cat TLB to a Case, to a Ford with four handles, to wiggle sticks, it warps more than your mind.
I can go from wobble stick backhoe controls to case 4 lever with no trouble. It's the Cat pattern to John Deere pattern on the 2 stick that gets me confused. The good news is most newer hoes have a lever under there to switch from one pattern to the other. :) The dozers with foot-steering or hand controls are no problem either. When the machine has the same controls but they have different funtions-WATCH OUT :D
But after a while I am in the swing of things again. I kind of like the challenge as well. Keeps you thinking on the job too.
:D The new loader over at the Canola Plant has a little toggle that switches from front wheel steering to 4 wheel or to "crab" steering. The first time the operator got it wiggled in between the bins we distracted him with a dumb question and flipped the toggle from 4-wheel to crab. We had a good laugh watching him try to drive out of there :D :D
I had a fun and interesting experience last week. A fella is trying to sell me an old backhoe he bought to clean his place up. He's about through with it. He got me to come over and dig out a stump with it so I could see how great it is. The only backhoe I've ever run before is a JD310 with wiggle sticks. This one is an old Case Construction King with 3 levers and foot pedals for the swing. While I was "digging" he was doing some grading with his other tractor, but he shoulda been making a movie! :D :D :D It was a pretty good sized pine stump, but I finally worried it out of the hole in about an hour. I woulda had it out in 10 minutes with that 310. ::)
The foot swing is great if you are used to it, many excavators have it as well. If you can keep track of them all, one lever per function keeps things straitforward I guess. And you can run that case with a beer beverage in one hand :o, you can't do that with wobble sticks :D. I sure like the wobble sticks though. So you're going to get some more practice with that case now that you bought it, right DanG? ;)
NOT! Well, I ain't completely ruled it out, but he's gonna have to get a lot more serious about selling it, if ya know what I mean. He want's 7 grand for it and I found an old Ford 4 stick for $4000 on CL this morning. I think I'm going for the pontoon boat though. ;D 8) 8) I can eat fish, but stumps are a little too chewey for me.
Well, part of the fun is in looking. But be careful about digging up to many stumps for free trying them out. Might be someone wants a little free labor who isn't really selling a tractor at all :D :D
True that, but the person with the pontoon boat said she'd take me fishing to try it out. Sounds like a better deal to me. :) :)
Well now, I'm gonna start shopping for boats if that's how they're selling them these days. 8) 8) If I get any good leads I'll pass 'em on.
I did like Corley, I switched the hoses on my forwarder loader to match my other machines.
When I went to a different mill, I could have easily switched the controls, problem was, I was being brought in as the second operator. It was better for me to switch as the mill that I had always ran was wrong to begin with it was push feed. A mill should never be push feed.
Well Gary_C,
inquiring minds want to know, how is the operator training going? ;)
How is the harvester working?
Wally
It's going, but slow. The machine had been sitting since last spring and a bunch of problems made for slow cutting. First the diameter sensor was off and had to be replaced. Then a hydraulic hose, actually two hoses sprung leaks and had to be replaced and of course all the hydraulic fittings are BSP so until I get some spare fittings on hand, everything has to come from the dealer with a next business day delivery. Then a wire on a saw sensor was bad and the saw sensors had to be replaced. Nothing major, but time wasting. Oh and the previous operator had not been draining the water separator and it froze up and shut off the fuel system one very cold night. Happened on a Saturday morning of course and it was Tuesday or Wednesday before I could get a new filter and the system bled and running again. ::)
Then lately the weather has not been good for this DNR job. It got too warm and the ground is thawing on top and on this job they will not allow any soil disturbance so the DNR has me shut down. Also the DOT has put road restrictions on and that leaves me waiting for some freezing nights to get the last load of pulp out and my machines out for the spring thaw.
As far as the operator error, it's getting less frequent but still there. It's not very often now that I run the saw out instead of grabbing the tree first. That's kind of hard on saw bars because at that time I usually am also lowering the head close to the ground and you just can't hang that head on the saw bar. Sometimes you can straighten those saw bars, but other times you just have to say "there goes sixty bucks." :(
I had a guy lined up for some training but he has been just too busy this spring to get here. So my training has been from learning by mistakes. And to make it even harder, this red pine job had just way too many double tops, triple tops, and even a few quadriple tops. Those trees are danG hard cutting for a good operator, let alone me. ::)
Maybe now I will have time for some pictures.
Where are you cutting at Gary? The woods have been a mess the last few days with the warm temps, I got my last load out yesterday. The skidder had to push me out the last few loads, that gets old. Now I have to start "trickling" the stockpiled wood to UPM Blandin, 1 load every other day. What year is your Ergo? Does it have joysticks or the globe style controls? I don't know why their trainer is too busy to come out, they haven't been selling any machines.
Here is what the controls looked like on the old Valmet harvester. That is the left joystick and there is another similiar one on the right. There is an abreviated keyboard just ahead with a single line display just in the picture on the right.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11467/Left-Joystick.jpg)
Here is the latest machine, a Ponsse harvester. The two mini joysticks are mounted on the ends of the arm supports on the seat. Just below the monitor behind the black fronted drawer is the regular keyboard and there is a touch pad on the right behind the joystick. The display is showing the diameter on the right and length of log fed thru on the left.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11467/Ergo-controls.jpg)
The mini joysticks have three functions each with the rocker switch on one side of each handle. They generally control the movement of the head and crane. There are also two little dimpled buttons near the joysticks on both sides that control cutting head functions and two rows of buttons on the far side of the base of the joysticks that have most of the processing selections like species and product selections.
Then here is a view from the front of the machine of what I was cutting. The machine just happened to be parked facing away from these trees. The trees marked with yellow paint are to be cut. The contract called for taking every other row, but the forester decided to "help me out" by marking the trees he wanted taken but it was really because there were so many double tops that he wanted to force me to take those first. You can see the problem with that idea as he did not mark enough for me to get through that space. That one unmarked tree got cut too.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11467/SNA-Thinning.jpg)
Looks like a very nice machine. Wish I had one( just don't want to pay for it) Hope you have enough work for it, probably goes though a lot of wood.
Stonebroke
:) :) :)Gary can you get Forestry Forum on that display? :) :) :)
Hey Guys I have a question for ya. I have run equipment all my life currently run a stroker and the company just got a 1998 Rottne H8 or 5000 CTL harvester i was told next week its going to be my baby but they are sending me to the thinning side of the company. :) I have never thinned anything except my hair or ever run a Rottne machine i was wondering if any one had a diagram of the controls so i dont look like an compleat idiot my first time on that machine and any advice, tips and tricks about thinning would be appreciated. Thank you!!
LuckyLogger6,
I would call Blondin Inc. in the USA for info on the machine. Being a 1998, I would imagine its a 5000. I worked for Rocan, who sold all the Rottne's in Canada, and a portion in the USA. Rottne's are popular in Eastern Canada. Rottne's are usually known for operator comfort, let me know how it works for you.
Also, if anyone is looking for Valmet levers like the ones pictured above, I know where theres a set for sale in NB, Canada.
thanks ill look them up does anyone have any tips on thinning?
LuckyLogger6
Welcome to the forum.
Ideas on thinning would likely be based on what's the objective of the thinning. Thinning could be many things, especially now-days. Might be to remove fuel for fire suppression, or to open up the stand for management practices planned, or to remove large trees for release of small ones. From soup to nuts and still called thinning.
Any ideas what the management plan might be?
Good luck on the controls of the new machine.
Your not one of the new actors in a TV show are you? ;D ;D ;D
Ditto! to what beenthere started.
Understand the specific objectives for the thinning of which there can be many and follow the directions of the administering forester or landowner.
I understand guys I'm not sure why the are sending me to the thinning side next week and figured throw me on the new machine. but i guess ill learn the hard way i have always been really quick to pick up new machines so it shouldn't be too bad of a learning curve :)
I hope you are not being thrown into a thinning job with no machine operator training or cutting training. If you were going into a clearcut, it would be bad enough, but not a thinning.
Like the others have said, it depends on the objectives of the job. In some cases those thinning jobs have marked trees and some it's operator selection. Operator selection is easier but requires more skill from the operator to do it right. The last pine thinning I did was operator selection, the only kind I will buy anymore, and because of so many double tops the forester decided he needed to mark trees after I started. It was somewhat OK but still those machines do not drive like snakes and I just took what extra I needed to get thru.
Best advise is to get some training first.
ya i have run equipment all my life farming, construction, and now logging i can run loader, skidder, and stroker processor but i have never even sat in a harvester but i guess they think i am the guy for the job ill have to ask about some training it will be interesting i guess :D
Skilled operators are soon recognized by their knowledge, skills, and abilities to work in thinnings without damaging the residuals according to the thinning prescription. A beginning operator can soon become an excellent operator by following the prescription as to what is to be done and threading lightly on the landscape.
Try an old timberjack. then try another one. the steering can be opposite the blade is on the left winch on right or vice versa. pain in the butt. despise the old timberjacks.