I want ask the experts what your preference is and why in regards to control layout in an excavator. For me I can only be efficient w Deere. I am curious to what the industry standard is and why. Is there A benefit? Thanks in advance
Use whatever control layout works best for you. It's just what you get used to. Where I am in Southern Ontario, 95%+ of excavators I've seen run on CAT controls. I'm used to CAT controls and they're the only layout I can be productive with. My own John Deere excavator runs on CAT controls. What I like about the CAT layout is that I find there is better division of work between the hands. When digging, I have my left hand working the stick, while my right hand works the curl (and boom). Now Deere layout guys will say the their right hand works the stick and curl while their left hand can work the boom, so... it's just a preference of whatever you're used to. Being proficient with cat controls is an important and near necessary skill round here due to the popularity of the cat layout.
Thanks sultan, I only rent small machines at work maybe A few times A year and seem pretty natural on the Deere system but find myself liking this type of work more satisfying than carpentry. With the Cat controls its apparent REAL quick my skills are novice at best! The guys I know round here ( California) say the pros lean to Cat as well. I truly flail when I set the machines to Cat... I embarrass my self and it gets dangerous! MORE PRACTICE
G'day guys, In Australia Excavators are almost all SAE and Backhoes (traditional controls) are ISO. However newer Backhoes with excavator style joysticks offer both styles. In the SAE control pattern, the left hand controls swing (left-right) and dipper (in-out), and the right hand controls the boom (up-down) and bucket (curl-uncurl). * Left hand left = swing left. * Left hand right = swing right. * Left hand forward = dipper out away from operator. * Left hand back = dipper in toward operator. * Right hand left = bucket curl. * Right hand right = bucket uncurl. * Right hand forward = boom down. * Right hand = boom up. The other most commonly used control pattern is ISO controls, which differs from the SAE control pattern only in that ISO controls exchange the hands that control the boom and the dipper. I have next to no experience on Deere excavators downunder because they are as scarce as hens teeth and am curious as to what Deere controls are?
"Deere controls" is ISO "Cat controls" is SAE
If your just starting out and would like to make a career out of operating check with some large companies around you and see what they run. Then take the time to "relearn" that control pattern and go with that. On a side note I have been operating equipment for over twenty years and just last summer switched to Deere controls for a new job. It took me a couple of months before I could fine grade without concentrating too hard.
A lot of it is what yo've learned on. I started on Deere controls around 8th grade, and have been running those ever since. If I get into something set to Cat controls it's all back-asswards.
I think that possibly Cat controls are better on an excavator and JD on a backhoe either way it good to be able to operate both but that requires constantly changing back and forth on a almost daily basis.
Just fit a pattern change valve and use both!!
I am used to Cat on excavators and deere on backhoes. if they are switched I look like a rookie trying to run them. After some time I can run it ok when they are backwards.
My dad is used to JD controls and when I was a runt that's what I learned on. Then came the rude awakening when I went to run a machine for somebody else. It seems only a handfull of people use JD controls around my neck of the woods. So I relearned the cat controls and now I can't function on JD controls. When my dad and I switch out on his 303 we always reach for the pattern changer knob first. When I bought my EX200-2 recently my dad insisted I install a JD/CAT switch too so we could both use the machine as he was too stubborn to relearn the Cat pattern... At least he paid for the switch! Actually not the biggest deal in town to install, and it works quite well.
Too old to change.I will not even try to run JD controls.My JD 200 CLC is set on Cat.
I prefer Cat controls. That's what I learned on. I have used "Deere" controls in the past. I have always felt most comfortable with Cat controls. I think that's because I learned on them first and I have a lot more hours on that pattern (by far). I think that going back and forth, between Cat and Deere, is harder than going between other patterns. IMO this is because they are so similar. IME Cat controls are more popular in the US. Certainly with the larger outfits. It seems odd to call Cat SAE and Deere ISO. The "Cat" pattern IS SAE standard for a "large" excavator. The flip side is that the "Deere" pattern is SAE standard for a "small" excavator. I'm not sure what size the break is at or why the brilliant minds at SAE even made two different standards. There are a lot more patterns out there if you throw in the TLBs. It seems to me that all the different patterns were, or developed into, a marketing strategy. Once a customer gets used to a particular pattern it will be difficult for a competing brand to win him over if he will have to learn a new pattern. You have to admit that it's a good marketing strategy. It sure can be frustrating for the end user though.
Thank you all. I am glad to hear practice seems to be the answer and being a "good all around hand" takes most people awhile. It's nice to know that I am not the only guy that struggles. I wish we actually owned A machine at work so I could just run the hour meter up w no one around after hours as it is just plain unsafe trying to "get it right" during work. At 250 A day to rent A Deere 50 which is what we get when we dig I just cant afford to get one to D**K off over the weekend! Thank again fellas for yer input
lol
stick to what you know i have to use jd but just because of years on a rubber tired hoe befor ever running excavators there is no reason to switch now
Jdigger4130, I am definately not an expert, but I do have a preference. I learned on "JD" controls and that's how our three Hitachi's are set up today. Learned to dig on a Ford 555 wobble stick backhoe, so it was a natural for me. Still cannot run "cat" pattern". Not sure if one is more productive than the other, just what I am used to. Had the opportunity to go to a Komatsu Demo in Chattanooga,Tn. back in '97 & got to run the PC750, PC1000, a 200, and 220, but they were set up "Cat", so that was frustrating, but still a memorable experience.
I can operate in both cat and deere but like cat so much more.
When I used to run ISO the other didn't make any sense. Now that I run SAE I don't know why ISO ever seemed right. HAHA
It's an age old question, discussed in the first thread I ever started on here. That's ok, we can always have fresh discussions. I just posted that link for anybody who'd like to review the earlier one. I learned on Case 3 lever controls with swing pedals. Later, I bought a Case 580 that had JD type joysticks, so I, learned that. I could jump back and forth between those two machines and never miss a beat. Still later, I got on an excavator, with Cat type controls, and that took some getting used to, but I found that I could still switch back and forth to that hoe with the JD controls and never had a problem. Fast forward to today--I've spent lots of time on excavators with Cat controls, but occasionally, a plumber friend of mine will ask me to run his Takeuchi mini, and it has the JD controls, and no pattern switcher. It takes me about an hour to re-program my hands so that I don't look like I'm clueless. You might think that having run that 580, I'd have no problem, but it's the fact that that one was a backhoe and the others are both excavators that screws my mind up. Last year, we had to borrow a Cat 416 from another guy for an hour or so. My old 580 is long gone. The Cat's usual operator had it switched to JD pattern, and I had to switch it back to Cat pattern to use it, so, so much for the difference between hoe and excavator any more. Yesterday, I had to load some trucks with a full size Kobelco, Cat pattern. Most recently, I'd been on the plumber's Tak for a few weeks, and a Kobelco mini a few weeks later. On the Kobelco mini, I just switched to JD pattern, becasue I might have to get back on the JD patterned Tak, but I still didn't feel quite at home. I spent about 15 minutes making a fool of myself on the full sized Kobelco, and another half hour being a little uncomfortable, but after an hour or so, I was right at home again. (Now watch the plumber call me, and screw me up all over again.) Anyway, having run both the Cat patterned excavators and the JD patterned 580, almost side by side, and done so proficiently on both types, I can't say that my preference would be for anything more than what I'm used to at the given time. (And it's off topic for this specific thread, but I'll still take the 3 lever Case pattern for a hoe, because I can use my right hand for boom and dipper, swing if necessary with my feet, and reach around behind me with my left hand and steer the front wheels while pushing with the hoe. Try that with one hand needed for the dipper and the other for the boom.)
Working out of a union hall most of us will run back hoes or excavators with either controls , some won't . When asked which I can run I usually reply " I can run either but I am only good on what I ran last " and it don't seem to matter how long ago it was . At times I get kind of stuck in between , not so great on either when you get jumping from company to company although this usually pertains to the little back hoes and today that is almost a thing of the past as most all can be changed by the fip of a switch ( finally ) . I have to say I don't think I was ever as confident on JD pattern as I am Cat SAE and thats after almost 30 years of trying . I used to like the old case with the foot swing being their was nothing to confuse it with until I ran across a Cat 416 that looked similar except the stick that would be for the extend-a-hoe on a Case was the swing on this Cat . Finally got used to that and then was sent out on a 580 and kept extending the stick when attempting to swing . Thank God for Joy sticks and the switch to make them do what " I " want it to do finally ........... Then JD decides to remove the forward and reverse shifter handle in the rubber tired loader and only has a rocker switch on the side of the boom lever, GREAT ! Stop trying to reinvent the mouse trap for a couple more years please ?
To me its pick one and stick with it. While I can train myself to switch pattern, i choose not to for safety. If I ever have to purely react to something, my brain may pick the other pattern, resulting it damage or death. Personally I think the industry should adopt a standard and run only that pattern. The different patterns originated as a way to keep customers loyal, but I believe for safety that there should be a set standard, and if that means that I have to learn deere pattern then so be it, at least everything will be the same.
This is the "Ford" or "Sherman" control pattern. This is what I learned on. IMO it's not a really common pattern. In fact I was able to get a union job on the "48 hour clause" because the Operating Engineers could not find anyone who could run this pattern. BTW some one else posted that they prefered the Case pattern so that they could puch and steer at the same time. This can be done with the Ford pattern too. Obviously many (myself included) have been talking about rubber tired backhoe patterns. I have only seen woble sticks on excavators. Just curious.....what other patterns are out there?
I learned 4 stick on an old Davis trencher. Then went to a two stick on a JD 410, very easy transition. The first excavator I operated was an old 690B JD with the long 2 sticks coming out of the floor between your feet. Then the mini pilot controls on the arm rest. Then onto the longer sticks, which most excavators are using now. We have one operator using SAE and the rest are ISO. The SAE operator's comment was that he never gets a break, his hands are always busy. Where with the ISO you can grab a sip of coffee without stopping.. Obviously I prefer the ISO, I tried to learn the SAE but found it horribly frustrating.. For us its easy to train a new guy on ISO. We just tell them the left hand controls the boom (up,down and swing) the right hand controls the bucket(in,out, curl and dump). My father told me that John Deere developed the first 2 stick excavator. The cab was on the right side so the left lever controlled the boom because it was closest to the boom. Not sure if it was for patent reasons or why the other manufacturers switched it up.
690A pic John Deere 690B pic http://s1098.photobucket.com/albums/g374/BearOnt/Excavating Pics/
First hoe I ran was a Deere no. 95 on the back of a 450C crawler which had a loader on the front. After that on to excavators with SAE controls. Got used to those and that is now what I prefer. All of the newer machines seem to have a switch on them so it is nothing to flip it and have what you are used to. I know a few that REFUSE to run anything but Deere controls. If they can't flip the switch to get it their way they WON'T run it. No body threw in the Case three lever arrangement on the their tractor backhoes. There is another one to get used to.
Except for Digger in post#20. :cool2 That's ok. My wife and kids don't pay attention to anything I say either.
Nothing more humbling then saying you know how to operate something and finding out the controls are different lol! John Deere controls cause thats all we ever had. I won't rent a machine that doesn't have a pattern change button or lever. After 25 years the machine can adapt to me instead of the other way around.
:BangheadIndependent old salt aren't you Revicm. hee hee hee
yes if you like deer then dig with deer but if you can run deer you can run cat once you master them both it wont matter they will be the same to you.I only ran deer at first but then got hired at new company they had cat it was hard at first but no problem now here is the trick to converting fast when you get on the cat controled the first thing when moving the boom and you need to remember this the up and down are on the two machines are backwards so grab the up and down very important to lift boom up if you do that i you helps you remember the direction exc.I rund both ISO and DEER controls
The first machine I was on was a four stick Kato witch was fun to learn on but a pain has I would have to use my feet. After that I jumped on a cat patten Kato and I just got used to using a cat patten cant operate the JD patten to save my self, I suppose I could learn but as yet I don’t operate to many excavators with the JD patten. On my excavator a cat 303c cr it has a patten changer and it has four pattens the cat witch it’s on at the moment and the JD and two other ones. Out of all the excavators I have operated the spider excavator had the most controls; it had two joysticks three-foot pedals and eight levers to control the leges…
Cat controls for me. If I try the Deere style I'll end up destroying some thing. LOL
Either, a real operator should be able to go from one to the other.I started on a Kobelco 220mark3 for cat controls and a 580superL on deere controls,little shakey going from cat to deere the first couple of days but you get the hang of it and both setups just come natural after awhile.
Yeah I don't think there is an industry standard. With any type of construction equipment it is more about the man than the machine IMO. It's just whatever excavator you are used to that is important. I always joke with new trainees that you must become one with the machine. It doesn't matter the controls.
I will say however that I am quite used to certain controls on machinery. In my old age it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, however it is important to be able to adapt as an operator. At least that's what I expect of my workers I hire.
Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I had an entertaining idea. I run backhoe or deer controls, and was trying to fathom why cat controls would be popular. I realized running a mini that something felt off with the deer controls, and I may have ran into a logical answer. If you look at a backhoe, the boom pivot is low to the ground, and the stick is long, longer if you have an extending stick. This makes the deer pattern popular as you are almost always using the boom to cut straight grade, so you aren't splitting up controls much if you switch to cat. If you look at an excavator, the boom is usually a lot longer, and pivots from higher, making the working range typically in the area where the stick is vertical. This makes most of the work in the stick and bucket, then loading, you try to stick with boom and turn. Another reason being, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you use the stick and bucket only, you get more force. Not only are you putting less vertical motion, but you are leaving out the boom ram flow. On the big machines, the boom eats a ton of pump pressure, so operators doing fast production work tend to drop the boom to elevation, and cut with majority stick and bucket, or use boom float so they aren't using pump pressure for the boom. At least that's my theory.
I've never thought to compare the different patterns and reasons for them Your theory actually makes logical sense to me. Thank you for posting this.
Ya, it was itching in my head and I was wondering if any other operators had thought about this or not. I think cat controls, splitting the pilots on excavators will give you more general use accuracy during excavating. Meanwhile on a backhoe it doesn't, and splitting the ends feels counter intuitive to me when I have to run the boom a lot since I mostly ran flat work. I feel shorter than 3 to 4 feet deep, it would still feel counter intuitive.
The two dominant patterns in the US are not Caterpillar and John Deere. The stated Caterpillar control is actually ISO standard and the John Deere pattern is SAE standard. The controls have always been a hodgepodge of what any particular manufacturer was thinking at the design stage. When excavators first came out you would find all kinds of different patterns because there were all kinds of control mediums and most controls were based loosely on crane controls. Line cranes in the days of big gears, shafts, frictions and brakes generally had the swing in the left hand while working the line drums with levers in your right hand. It wasn't much of a problem on lift machines but duty cycle cranes that handled drag lines and clam buckets were like rubbing you tummy while patting your head until muscle memory gradually made things automatic. Then came air operated excavators which shifted by whatever brand you happened to be on that day. I ran a couple of Koehrings that were air controlled. As I recall two handles that only moved front to back. Left one controlled the swing and right controlled the boom. Two air buttons on the top of each handle controlled the stick and bucket. Those machines were free swing. Link-Belt cranes had a pilot system called Speed-O-Matic. Small levers on a table just in front of the operator controlled pilot oil to actuate frictions. Brakes were still manual back then. Then came the hydraulic machines in the mid to late seventies and everything changed more to what you see now. There are other patterns that can be found as well. When the gray market was hot in the eighties and nineties the predominant pattern from Asia had the swing in the left hand operating forward and backward. The stick was left hand side to side. There were few pattern changers back then and some didn't have the ISO pattern anyway. Tracing hoses and keeping track of which you shifted sometimes was a bit confusing.
My caterpillars have the choice of SAE and BHL, with BHL meaning BackHoeLoader. Therefore, the "common" Caterpillar pattern must be SAE (not ISO). My newer Cats, including the backhoes, use electronic valves as opposed to the manual one above. As for the earlier post on a Takeuchi, all my Takeuchi minis have pattern change valves. What model Takeuchi is this plumber's mini?
Here is the link to Wikipedia with the explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excavator_controls#SAE_controls Backhoe loaders started with four lever controls for years before they ever considered joysticks. I have backhoe loader customers that won't consider running one with joysticks.
Yep, I've ran 4 stick. The awesome part about it is you can feel the hydro going thru the valves in the individual handles. The best operator I worked with uses a case with 4 stick, owner operator. He was so good the bottom of every footing was undisturbed native, and within probably 1/8" flat across the 10 foot wide by 6 foot deep pad footings. 12 in one day, and I shoveled at most 4 shovels out of the bottom of each. I was hugely impressed. Our "operator" jumped on the rental thinking the guy was going too slow, and dug a bunch of 6" deep gouges in the bottom of one before conceding he was outmatched by a long shot. One of my last days with that company, and I was very amused.
I learned on the JD style, and I find it most logical because the order of functions seems to go from left to right as the closest to the operator to the farthest from the operator, in order. Or, another way to look at it, the left hand controls only the main boom and the right hand controls the fine functions closest to the actual dirt. I once had to run a Ford 4 stick, and was telling the soils engineer to get away from the side of the bucket, I was afraid I was going to smack him, I was so crossed up in my functions.
Have a retired friend that only ever ran an old Ford.....doubt he could get anything else out of transport position. Lol. He's a slow operator, every move counts, get more done in a day than most other operators. He was the local dig the in ground pool guy, call 5 other contractors......they would give you John's number. Ed
Yep. I think excavator operators like Cat controls because they aren't always pulling sticks at an angle. I've always used deer controls. I tried cat twice, and the second time wasn't so horrible. The first time I kept jamming the bucket on the ground trying to reach out.
I tried convincing my ex boss that if he let me run the machine it would break less often and things would get done faster while the backhoe moved slower. He didn't believe me. This is 'Merican way of thinking. Beat it with a sledge hammer until it fits.
So true it's not funny. Ed
My 312B is ISO - LEFT= swing & boom up/down, and not switchable. ISO is the most common setting everywhere in the world . . . except in the US where apparently it's SAE. I wonder why Cat changed the 'US standard' (like on the 312B) from ISO to SAE and the 'name' from ISO to BHL . . . .
Cat says there are at least 4 patterns they recognize...
I am not trying to change the 'pattern' on my 312B. I understand there are many 'patterns' that Cat 'recognizes. Caterpillar is -international- and they have different 'patterns' for different 'areas'. I was just wondering WHY the -apparent standard- for the USA was changed and WHY the NAME change.
The world may never know. My guess is after a lazy American operator worked with the pilot sticks for a while during testing, he decided he liked the "cat" style setup better than iso for joystick purposes because he was used to a 4 lever system and that setup made it so there were less angles to pull. I think JCB and case wobble sticks are iso. I could be wrong. Idk if they are switchable or not either, I only every used one of them, and that was a while ago. It seems most backhoe operators who dont run excavators prefer iso, while the only operators I know that prefer SAE are those with large excavator experience.
I know this is an old thread, but everything I read says this pattern is ISO but no one corrected it. Who is confused here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excavator_controls#ISO_controls