harvesters

notchjohnson · March 27, 2019, 08:06:27 PM

am thinking of buying a wheeled harvester and was wondering if some one could tell me the advantages and disadvantages of a telescoping style vs a boom style

wannaergo · March 27, 2019, 09:30:22 PM

If you are talking telescoping like a ponsse, I think the parallel style is just a lot more simple, and lower maintenance, with less moving parts.

barbender · March 27, 2019, 09:44:15 PM

We're moving towards the parallel cranes on our harvesters, for the reasons wannaergo listed. Less moving hoses, no hose reel, no slide pads. It also comes down to matter of preference, I've only ran the sliding cranes so I can't compare. A lot of guys don't like the parallel crane when they first run one, but then come to prefer them. I do know of one guy that that bought a machine with a parallel crane, hated it, and traded cranes with a guy that had a slider.

Riwaka · March 28, 2019, 08:21:36 AM

Ponsse label them - sliding boom crane (C6 and C5) and Parallel Crane (C55, C50 and C44+). My preference would be for parallel crane.

Have you done the cost comparison (wheel vs track machine) or is there an environmental instruction, contract clause why you must run a wheel harvester?

Tigercat have the 1135 and 1185 wheel harvesters. I think someone was 'joking/ logger's fantasy fiction' when they mentioned recently an 1155 wheel harvester in the future.

Tigercat LH830 (track leveller) with squirt boom and sp harvester at 18000 hours. (drive oil volume around 8 gallons vs around 60 gallons on some wheel machines)

SP861LF on Tigercat LH830 - YouTube

wannaergo · March 28, 2019, 09:21:29 AM

Riwaka, tigercat is actually building a mid sized wheel harvester, I believe 1165. The first one will be rolling off the line within a month or so.

chevytaHOE5674 · March 28, 2019, 03:08:44 PM

After thousands of hours on a sliding boom Ponsse it got to be second nature. Had our fair share of hose/wiring issues in the boom, also bent a few extension cylinders. Later on I ran a Jd with a parallel crane and I felt like a fish out of water.

Having said that once you get used to either it will be 2nd nature. The parallel cranes don't have slide pads, chains, hose/wire spools, and a long cylinder to care for which is a plus in my book.

Skeans1 · March 29, 2019, 04:31:08 AM

For thinning my choice would be a parallel just for the fact you can tilt the base of the crane around a tree to access another one behind without damage.

Corley5 · March 29, 2019, 10:14:15 AM

How do they compare purchase price wise?

wannaergo · March 30, 2019, 07:26:29 AM

If I remember correctly, our parallel crane was $10k cheaper than a slider

barbender · March 30, 2019, 08:44:25 AM

Wannaergo, you have an H8 on that parallel, don't you?

wannaergo · March 30, 2019, 09:17:56 AM

Yessir. We absolutely love it too.

barbender · March 30, 2019, 10:28:52 AM

Cool! I was pretty sure your machine was set up with an H8, me and the local Ponsse salesman (a friend) were debating that at our last logging show. They had an Ergo 8w with a sliding crane and H8 head. He thought you had to use that crane to hang an H8. I will correct him😁

wannaergo · March 30, 2019, 10:59:03 AM

Actually when we got ours, they wouldn't put an H8 on a slider crane, only the parallel. For a short time I had the only ponsse on planet earth that didn't have any extendo boom.