Any Pros -or- Cons about Volvo's MT-2000 from IR? I see how IR totally jumped ship with their road division. - Could it be they foresaw the mess we're in now? Or is the age of the "Jetsons" just around the corner?
They have some pretty good pictures on the ingersoll website. The machine itself looks nice, I wouldn't want to try to fix it though.
Just saw a write up about the IR/Volvo MT 2000....looked like an Ingersoll with a funky paint job.
It is IR machine. Volvo acquired IR Road Division in May 2007.
MT2000 Demo We are scheduled to demo one in the upcoming weeks for two days.Has anyone been around these mechanicly or operating them?Any major differences over the others or is a mill a mill.
it kind of seemed like a wirtgen knock off from the limited once over i gave it.
exactlt what I thought
or should i say exactly...couldn't find the edit button... :-/
Here's what's up on the Volvo MT2000. Ingersoll Rand sold their milling machines to Wirtgen, waited for the noncompete contract to expire, then they hired back all their engineers from Wirtgen. They built a new IR mill in 2007, it never went into production because Volvo was in the process of purchasing IR's road machinery business. Volvo bought IR, and now Volvo is now producing the old IR rollers, mills, and pavers as Volvo brand equipment.
Ir IR made some of the better mills way back when, I remember getting our @sses kicked on sq yds by a 7ft cuttin one back in the early 90s. IR was also sued in and lost for around 17 million back in the 90s as well, something about the machine backed over the groundmans foot. From what I hear now they have some pretty annoying safetys on the track travel control when its up out of the ground. Then again Wirtgen are annoying as well with that travel control speed cut when the tracks are turned more than 5 degrees either way. In the cut, I'd like to see an IR/Volvo against RX500/W2000/PR600, with a good operator that knows how it would probably keep up if not outright beat them. IR had a great gear drive system which put max HP to the ground.
anybody heard anything about whether the stimuls money will keep our mills busy next year also with more resufacing work.
I heard only part of the money came out and that this year alot of big projects were cut short due to lack of funding....alot more next year, supposed to be steady for a few years. That stimulus nonsense will take years......
I just recently attended a Volvo CST course on the new Volvo MT2000 Mill and I was thoroughly impressed with the unit. It was a mechanics course and being around heavy equipment for the past 20yrs, I'm gonna say they've really put their stamp on it. This unit was in the design phase for about 6yrs now and they just recently this year released it for production. It was tested for 3yrs non-stop under field like conditions, and it seems they've got most of those bugs worked out. The only concerns I have about is how well customer service is going to be with it. I guess we'll just wait and see. You can also tell that the quality is far better than the machines Ingersoll-Rand produced at that plant. That is where they make all the rollers and pavers and now graders. I was at that plant several years ago when they were IR, and it looks nothing like it now. What a change. They must be paying those people pretty good. Seems like all the workers are pretty upbeat when I've talked with them. The course was really good, better than the Komatsu courses I've taken.
I would start with your local state DOT, Indiana DOT in your case. They would be the first to know what effect the stimulus plan will have in the next season. Hopefully it will be in time to help those contractors who need it the most, although I think everyone by now falls into that category. - By the way what mills are you running?
how's it going he2009, i run a w1000 and w1200 90% of the time and then help out with our w2000's when i got nothing going on but here lately i havent spent much time around our big mills, cause our smaller machines start earlier and finish later in the year. And a lot of our guys hate running the small mills because its alot of bull#### milling some times, but i like it cause i'm by myself
We ran 2 separate demo's last year with the MT2000, loads of bells and whistles, but that's not always a good thing with a mill. They could never get it running right electronically. Lots of shutting everything down and resetting the computer. Major issues with the sonar sensors on the front tracks that is supposed to keep from running someone over. They kept malfunctioning and stopping the mill when there was a pile of millings or sometimes nothing at all in front of the tracks. Also had issues getting the folding conveyor to unload.
No surprise as to what you described Turtle. We did have problems with the "ODS Sensors" located around the tracks with detecting too soon or going off at any old time. We have since, been calibrating each one and the problem seems to be resolved. As far as the conveyors, the discharge, and gathering conveyors have both been updated with better results of discharging all the material possible. Haven't seen any problems with the conveyor unfolding for awhile. I will say one thing, Volvo isn't pushing these machines down people's throats yet like IR would've. They are taking time to get the bugs out. I would not want to troubleshoot electrical problems on these, but hydraulically, they aren't too bad.
The problem with all ultrasonic sensing systems is that the return signals from the ultrasonic sensors (transducers) must be carefully modified to accomodate changes in media density. ie the air through which it passes. As such adjusting bales with thermo resistors must be added to accomodate changes in air temperature..which affects density (and as a result measurements of distance), and electronic signal modifications must be made to ignore false signal returns cause by the presence of dust or high humidity in the air. These can be dialed out electronically to a degree, but it becomes a judgement call on how much to ignore when doing this for safety reasons. A company calle "Safety First" out of Long Island NY developed this technology for school buses back in the early nineties...it was since abandoned. Better that Mr. Willys at Volvo Shippensburg (chief milling engineer), look into the use of infra red sensors (basically radar), which are now becoming commercially available, and have as a primary benefit, that they do not depend on air as a medium to carry the signal returns with all the consequent deviations.
The ODS sensors seem to work fine on our machine. Volvo just updated our software, so they may have changed some of the parameters.
I'll also post some pictures of our machine when I'm able.:tong
mt-2000 whats the best way to secure a mt-2000 to a lowboy. I havent hauled one yet and was wondering if there is something special I should do
There should be some easy too see chain holds, I dont know a mill that aint got em. Make sure the cutter teeth are as close to the deck of the trailer as possible, raise up the front and rear moldboards and visually check till your good with it and chain the sucker down. Some people like using the tracks as chain holds too, being its a four track thats a good go if you cant find D rings or holes for chain hooks. Good Luck and send pics, I havent heard of anyone buying those.
Thanks, it was all as you said. Finally hauled one of these and it was a piece of cake to tie down. Didnt like that it shuts down a few times when loading or unloading but just pushed the override and was fine.
finally hauled the volvo mt-2000. everything as you said, piece of cake to tie down. Had to push the override button a few times to keep going when loading or unloading. Thanks
If you had to hold the override button down just to load it, I would suggest checking the oil before unloading it. It is probably 1/2 a gallon low if the engine is shutting down on that short of an incline.
Those safetys are a ride out on those things, Mr Ando wouldnt buy one specifically because of that. Tex is right about the incline but i wonder if an engine sensor like that would let the engine run at all.
volvo mt-2000 obstacle feature Its not shutting down the engine, it stops the machine. Heard that the obstacle feature might come on when loading onto lowboy because of the incline. It does ! It stops the machine before it runs over anything. It really stops the machine quick. No problem, just push the override and it gives another 30 seconds to get onto trailer. If someone is slow just push the override again. Scared me the first time though.
no more rx500 the new rx600 is out
Good to see you Griz, I was talking to charlie the other day, hes got that 8 ft 60C in Queens and says they love it. Whose got one of those 600's? id love to give one a go for a minute or two. Funny to see some of the old school CMI people completely on the Roadtec wagon lately. If you had told me that would happen back in the 90's I can name a few people that would say NO way but now own more than 5 roadtecs.
Mill drum, The city has a new 600 and AI is demoing one . There's 6 new 900's & 4 700's in the northeast just in the last 60 days,another 5 600's out west and down south,haven't had much time to post. they have been running me like a red headed stepchild.