How important is it to have a skylight in your excavator when you are using a mower or mulching head on a excavator? I have very little experience running a excavator & no experience running 1 with a mower or mulcher. I thought that I figured out which excavator I wanted to buy but come to find out it doesn't come with a skylight. I would think performing either of those tasks I would want a skylight to be able to see what I'm doing especially being a rookie.
Visibility is one thing. Protection from shrapnel coming through the glass and talking your head off is quite another.
Replace the glass with ½" Lexen when the windscreen is replaced should be good enough.
My big mulching excavator is a PC200LC6. Unless I need to see up high in the trees, like doing field edge cut backs or taking out really tall tops, the top hatch stays closed. No need for a skylight - it will get covered over in debris unless you have a triangular shaped unit to shed chips & chunks. When I need to see up high I just open up the top hatch and let the dust/heat/cold in until I'm finished with that section. Not really a big deal. My opinion on hoe operations with a mulcher or cutter: ALWAYS - ALWAYS - ALWAYS wear a hard hat and safety glasses. If the hatch is open and a chunk comes flying back, it's pretty painless with the hard hat on. Dip your head and deflect it if you see it coming. Safety glasses will protect your eyes when you blow out a windshield or chunks fly into the cab. Be SURE to put a heavy screen in front of the cab glass to protect it from flying debris. It won't stop rocks but it will stop most wood chunks. If you don't follow these simple suggestions, you may end up like a young guy I knew years ago. He and his dad never ran a guard in front of the cab glass because, "it was too hard for them to see through and they never broke glass." I heard a call on the radio when it happened. About a 4"-5" diameter chunk of sycamore, maybe 1'-2' long went through the cab glass and into his face just below his eye. He had a fairly round circle of bloody holes in his face from that close call. After that, he asked to borrow the hard hat and glasses I tried to convince him to use the day before. Thinking is hard and for the ambitious - feeling is easy and for the lazy : think at least 3 steps ahead so you don't have to feel so stupid from results of dumb mistakes that could be easily avoided.