Has anyone ever ran one of these? I was just wondering how well they worked.
I never was around one.I think ruston bucyrus was involved in the design.It makes sense using cables insted of hydraulic cylinders when the boom gets that long.The boom is lighter and would have more power like a dragline.
Don't know anything really about how they ran but the dipper or stick extend mechanism on the machines pictured was very unusual. I only ever read about it but a hydraulic cyclinder pushed a sliding counter weight towards the back of the machine. A wire rope attached to the counter weight went up the back of the boom and it pulled on the stick to extend the bucket away from the machine. The weight was then drawn back up the boom as the bucket was drawn in. Seemed like a good idea for a long reach machine.
Yes I have operated the priestman long reach. They have the winch drive which gave them awesome breakout power in tough ground that comperable machines without the cable drag could not touch. The dragline type application worked directly with your stick control. No other movement was necessary. The counterweight would ride on a cylinder on the back of the machine and would provide the machine the balance it would need and ajust as you let the stick all the way or part way out. The one I operated had a 75 foot reach if I remember right. A company out of Melvindale Mich owned 2 of them. Very popular in pond work.
Old Priestmans Thanks for the reply. I though there might be more people from across the pond with experance on these machines. I got a couple of questions How fast are they compared to a regular long stick excavator? I was wondering about putting a tall wide bucket on one and using it to drag spoil closer to the edge and dipping it out wide a regular excavator. Like when you are cleaning out wide ditches.
They are the same speed as any long stick that I have ever operated. Actually the cable drag in is scary quick! As far as the bucket size, the ones over here had 1 yard buckets. They actually had water holes in them because of the pond work issues. Anything larger than that would be a tipping issue I would think.
Priestman I ran i think it was a VC35 ? same as cat controls smooth machine the drag cable has 5 tons of pull half yard bucket at 65 ft it works very well for dredgeing it made our cat 420 look like a tea spoon on one job the boom is light weight so only pull with it or it will bend