Anyone use slope meters? I thought about buying one, didn't know if it was worth the investment? Here is the site where I was looking at them www.lascolaser.com Let me know what you think about them.
there was one in the komatsu tracked dump truck we've rented a few times. it went to like 30 degrees. I had it pegged out before going up hill too a few times lol To me it was just something to look at, I really never used the thing, as i usually just go by the feeling in the seat. In the dozer it may be helpful. Say you cant have a hill steeper than 30 degrees, you can just keep and eye on that as your grading it out. I guess they could keep you from getting on a hill that was too steep, Once again I just go by the feeling in the seat, the dozer we have will just slide down the hill sideways before it would ever flip over. I must say it's quite the feeling slideing sideways down a very steep hill! it was very hard to walk up on foot.
I have one it is mounted on the dash of my D6H it is marked out like0.1,1.1, 2.1 slope 3.1 slope on up to i think 6.1 with splits in between for like 2.5/1. I wouldn't get the 30 dergree.If for your dozer you will be using it more as 2.1slopes so fore. You need to get it mounted as close to level with the machine as you can on a level concrete pad.In the cab it is basicly a gage,would be more accturate if mounted on the back of the blade as that is where the cutting is actually taking plus.Just harder to see and more chance of getting broke. If you get on to it and get you blade postioned level with the slope meter in the cab of the machine then you would be surprised how close you can get thing. Good luck
We have started fine grading our hospital job and I have to put all the slopes on grade with a D5N. There is a lot of different slops on this job ranging from a 2:1 to a 8:1.
What do you think of something like this? For 25 bucks and free shipping it seems good to me? http://cgi.ebay.com/BCA-Slope-Meter..._trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247#ebayphotohosting
Looks a lot better than the $185 ones.
Get the office to spring for the $185 one for each fine grade machine. They are a great little tool to eyeball what you are doing. Ive used one on the grader at the union training center. You can crown a road all by yourself. You will be able to get all the slopes you're talking about close enough. What it costs would quickly be saved by not having to use stakes. You just need your top grade, and bottom grade, and you can piece everything else together by eye. Im going to guess that what you are grading is green space, so you wont have a gnats rear tolerances like you would for a road. They work great for roughing something in by yourself. You can rough in the crown on your road by yourself. Then grab your grade guy double check everything and scratch it down to final in no time.
I ran a grader at the training grounds for a few hours that had one, pretty sweet. Chris, the one on Ebay is legit, those Backcountry Access slope meters work pretty well. I really don't know if they would hold up as long as the metal cased ones if mounted in a machine, but they are far, far less expensive. I've used one skiing in the backcountry, snow covered slopes are sometimes deceiving and like the description implies on the Ebay page, knowing just how steep the slope is combined with many other factors allows you to dodge avalanches and stay alive.
We have a few blades and dozers that have the slope meters in them. The blades have a Slope Meter 2, which will show cross slope in percents. They range from a 1% to a 12%. A few of the dozers have them as well. Most of our dozers have the orginal Slope Meter, which just shows slope readings, such as a 1:1 or 2:1 slope. These go from a 1:1 to a 6:1. Used mostly for cutting side slopes on a road or landfill cell. Reaaly nice instument for roughing in a slope or road grade. It will get you close enough till the finish crew shows up. The D9 on my job has a Slope Meter 2 in it. I'll get a pic of it for you tommarow. Jason
We have them in most of our graders. I would recommend them highly. Don't go cheap..remember, you get what you pay for.
For $185 you can't go wrong. I just ordered one for our 12G, have alot of 3:1 coming up. Thanks for the post
my father has used the slope meter 2 in his last 2 graders, first the F, now the G. Some of his jobs are building track for race horses, and it makes it easier for him to maintain slope. Plus, most of them their track to be like the first one he built, so with this he can know for sure that he has the same slope on the inside lanes of the track. Plus there are a cheap investment. Just dont go too cheap. Some of the ones he tried before, the sun would melt the level glass (plastic).
Don't Leave Home Without One! Jeremy I also use the Slopemeter #2. These are designed and manufactured to mount in heavy equipment. The fluid in the vial is heavy and helps keep the indicator steady even with all the vibration yet it still reacts quick enough to keep you accurate. The State of Alaska DOT grade inspectors use these same Slopemeters mounted on an 8 & 10 foot aluminum straightedge. Great tool! Great Quality. Worth every penny. Make sure that you calibrate the meter after installing. This involves marking the asphalt where you park, then turning the machine around and parking on exactly the same spot at the same angle and adjusting the meter so it reads exactly the same percent facing both ways. I’ve actually had to file a slight elongation in one hole on some mounts to accomplish this. I also keep a “Digital Smart Tool” mounted in a 4 foot aluminum level in the cab of the grader during paving season. I use it to calibrate the slope control on the grader and use it on the ground to check things. Some of the designed gradient on these aircraft parking aprons is less than .5%, one little screw-up or bad pass and you’re going to have ponding. You calibrate the Digital Smart Tool much the same way, set it on the same spot facing opposite directions, hit the CAL button at each position, it averages the two settings to find 0%. They are extremely accurate and can read in increments of .1%, I don’t even use a regular level anymore. Regards, Randy
Randy, you are quite right about importance of callibrating the slope meter to the machine. I thought some thing was wrong with one on a new John Deere I was on out west just by the feel of it. I marked paint on the job where the tyres were, then turned the machine around and lined the tyres up with the marks and it was a third of a bubble out. Tyre pressures, wear or size or profile or mixed brand names can cause this. Result was I had a blue with the foreman who still insisted I use the meter. I refused because it didnt feel right and felt it would not allow me to do my job so I got run off for the first time in my life! It didnt matter coz I had more wheels elsewhere the next day. I will agree they can be a big help. I dont use them much- only to check sometimes, but mainly go by feel of the lay of the machine.
I went the redneck way with mine. I have a 2 foot level with a digital readout that would read in percent. I used it in a CAT 613 scraper when I was hogging in a small roadway and was really surprised how close it got me. I used it in the grader and got it almost perfect. Got me close enough on a little backwoods road anyway.
Heres a pic of a Slope Meter No.2. The only reason why this D9 has a No.2 is for a job we did last summer. It was 8.5 miles of road into a new gold mine. More or less a glorified logging road, only built 30 feet wide! We roughed it in with this 9 and a D8, then finished it with the 14G. The intire road had to have a 3% inslope. There was no set grade, just make it fit. So these meters came in really handy on the dozers. I doubt I will ever get so lucky as to build another one like it! Jason
I agree, they are great. And get the good one as pictured by JTL and Randy Krieg. The lliquid filled glass keeps it steady enough to read, while the backpacker version will bounce enough to be nearly unreadable. Also, the one reading percent is a really flat curve, for more accuracy, and the slope version is a steep curve to read a wider range of slopes, but not quite as accurate. I had one mounted to an industrial strength magnet, so I could take it to a different machine when I needed to. Just stick to the dash and check for calabration really quick, and you were set. Could also set it endways to measure going up and down, but a little less accurate because of tracks digging in, or the front of the machine lifting in hard ground. once you cut a good pass, you could generally read it pretty good though. One day I will have to make another, as someone decided they liked it more than I did.
It's funny you should mention that. I've been kicking the idea around of mounting a No.1 on magnets to carry with me and stick to the hood of the dozer when I am sloping, just to make it a bit easier to carry the slope since we are lucky to have any stakes at all. Brian
Brian It is a great idea, especially when you may not get to run the same tractor always. If you need to do slope work, just stick it on and go. I made mine out of a magnetic sweeper about 16" wide or so that I got from the hardware store. Just used some "L" brackets to bolt it on, and it worked great.
Slope meter #2 (picture above) are the ones that we have. I posted the picture in my previous post from their web site and after looking at it more closely(duh) it's not the same. Having said that, the numbers appear to be opposite than the #2 so I'm wondering why
Thats easy! A 1% grade is flatter than a 12%. As well a 8:1 slope being flatter than a 2:1. 0 is the startting point, so the steeper the grade gets, the more the bubble will move, hence the 8:1 being first past 0. Jason
One more note, if you do not want to pay $185 for a new one, search E-bay, and with some patience, you can usually find one for half price.