The Beast

[Walnut Beast]

There is a guy down In Oklahoma that has a new system that FAE claims he stole or copied from them of there sonic system and his company is Mastodon.com. The system he has looks pretty impressive with a small touch screen monitor that goes in your cab with various information and adjustments. The 160cc Parker pump acts like a variable transmission on a and a new tooth design he has a patent on. He said he backs his head and will put it up against anything. I might have to take a trip down there. The owner Patrick is proud, confident and firm on 43k on the head and monitor. 

[mike_belben]

I'm guessing the head uses a variable displacement motor that reduces displacement (straightens the swash plate) as the drum speed falls off?

[Haleiwa]

For that price you could buy two Virnigs and set them up with different teeth for stony or clean conditions. My experience is that the first set of teeth doesn't last as long as the second (good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment).  If you really want to see sparks,  hit a piece of steel.

[treemuncher]

ASV's float when others don't. They are more maintenance for sure but they flat outperform other track u/c's imo. I've spent a fair amount of seat time in both. The old models like the 4810 were known for losing tracks, but I never had an issue with the newer ones.

I purchased a 4810 new maybe around 2003 or so. I experienced 7 track derailments in the first 70 hours of ownership. Needless to say, I was *pithed. Try getting a track back on in a swamp or a steep hillside - it really SUCKED. The manufacturer finally sent me an anti-derailment kit that solved the inner derailments, for the most part. Nothing but constant track issues and it cost more to rebuild that UC than a D6. 3 sets of tracks in a little over 2k hrs. You had to be very careful how and where you ran that machine. Sharp flint rock and rubber tracks don't mix well, or any rock for that matter. The machine made me a lot of money but it was a real maintenance hog. Like a boat, the best days of my ownership were purchase and sell days.

It was a stout machine with great lifting capacity and low ground pressure. I could do things with that machine that no other machine could attempt when it came to swamp work. I also knew it as the "PITCH & PUKE" machine because I got sick to my stomach in that thing so many times. Watching a wall of green in front of you falling to the ground endlessly while traversing over rough terrain would always bring out my motion sickness.

I've run some of the newer ASVs and they are much improved. If they could side hill up to 30-35 degrees, they would be a much better machine.  But, for my line of work, they are too small and not well suited to forestry abuse. If I was looking at small machines, if the track system is better than it was, I would add them to the shopping list and start reading specs.

[Walnut Beast]

 

 

 A guy out on the other end of the state runs 4 ASV RT 120s, Prentice mulcher, and two big excavators. What I hear from guys that run multiple smaller machines vs one dedicated is the speed and productivity they are getting jobs done 

[Walnut Beast]

Nativewolf this is a Prinoth head that I'm leaning toward on a Lamtrac 6140 or 70. It's a bite limiter that will take teeth to sharpen and carbides. It I was in rocky terrain this head wouldn't be the one. It would be a different rotor that would take some different variations of carbides

 

 This is Prinoths dedicated machine the Raptor 800. 640hp C18 CAT

[sawguy21]

 Snow is it's own beast to operate in with a light crawler. Long ago but not too far away I worked in a sawmill that used a nearly new 1010 Deere crawler/loader with forks as a yard machine. Load the deck with logs and move packs of lumber out to the yard. The mill was on a side hill with the log deck at ground level and the tail section up about 10' in the air. Backing away from the mill with a pack of lumber, the back of the crawler would ride up on the snow. I'd only be able to back up maybe the length of the machine before I would have to go ahead a bit to bring it back down. Jockey around like that 3-4 times before I could get far enough away from the mill to turn and travel forward.
 Tossed the slabs down into a KB-6 dump truck. Even with triple side chains on, that was a job to get over to the slab pile and back.

Wow, a KB-6 dump truck? How old are you? :D