Why doesn't anyone other that Tak and Kubota offer a roll up door. It is so handy to roll the door up if you are getting in and out often and the ability to get out of the machine while the arms are up.
I "think" it has a lot to do with cab/electrical layout of the other brands of machines. Almost all of them have all the buttons and switches in the upper right and left hand corners of the cab and I imagine they don't want to reinvent the whole cab layout for a roll up door...what the hell do I know though?? My personal opinion is that the roll up door is the only way to go....
I’m no,expert, but the roll up doors seem like a no-brainer. From a safety point, it seems like every other design takes a back seat. I hope to acquire a CTL in the next year or so, and this will be feature of importance to me.
Just bought a SVL75-2 and the door is the main reason I went with it. I’ve only put about 7 hrs on it but can tell I’m going to really like it over the regular style door. This should be standard on all skids.
At least I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
A CAT salesman told me that one reason theirs swings is that it's easier to get an airtight seal, for the AC system. Personally, I think it's a lousy compromise. If I were in the market, I wouldn't consider a machine that had a door that would only let me work if it was closed.
Seems to me with a pressurized cab the roll down door would be pushed against the rubber seal and actually seal better than a door that opens to the outside. I’m no expert though. So far the Kubota doesn’t let any dust in, its still new though so time will tell.
Should have mentioned the excavators have a roll up window and they seal ok digger. Some so called salesman are just so full of bull ****.
Absolutely....The front window on my Bobcat E42 rolls up, and I don’t have any problems with it whatsoever. After hearing and reading stories of equipment doors being blocked for various reasons, it’s nice to have a means of exit other than an outward swinging door.
The thing I don’t like about roll up doors is they normally have a cheap design. It doesn’t take but a few years and you’re struggling to open it or doesn’t lock when you open it and it slams down on your head. All the cats that I’ve ran the swinging doors years later they still work as good as day one.
Well, on the one CAT that it's been my displeasure to operate, the door might've still worked ok, but the cylinder to hold it open was wearing out. Stop and try to get out with the machine angled even slightly uphill and you have to have an extra arm to hold the door open long enough to get your butt out of the seat. (Plus, they bought it used, and within about a week used it to pour concrete. Nobody bothered to hose the splatter off the window, so until one of the bosses put a tree branch through the glass, you had no choice but to look through splattered concrete to see what you were working on.)
I haven’t sat in but 3-4 cats and the doors were all jacked up. I think this has allot to do with age and use though. The few bobcats I’ve been on had good doors. Dozerboy does have a good point and I am worried about all the linkage and rollers on the roll ups. Oh well just a maintenance issue I guess. Nothing last forever it’s all a trade off
if youve ever seen a lift base end hose blow while the boom is up, you'd never exit a machine while the boom is up and not supported....
I used a vendor's Cat to unload my trailer the other day and was instantly reminded how much I hate getting in one of those coffins. I've been stuck in the cab twice with a swing out door and had to exit out the back window. Both times were because of mechanical failure and in both instances the arms were just a few inches above the bump stops. The position of the attachment wouldn't allow the override button to relax the arms far enough down to exit. It's a stupid design and I'm way too old for that crap. Flip up doors are a bunch safer and give a much wider view of the work area in front of the machine which I like. We set a lot of precast concrete culvert ends and the ability to leave the door open and talk to the guy on the ground is a big plus. Flip up doors for me.
Maybe manufacturers will see this and at least make it an option on new ones.
I have been a part of these discussions and I can say that a big part of the reason is the extra height that the roll up door needs to allow proper room inside the cab. The door storing up above also removes room for a lot of other features There are some benefits to a roll up door, but it also becomes a maintenance issue with use and a typical door does not. CTL's especially vibrate a lot in movement and leaving the door up and running the machine is much different then an excavator roll up window which moves much slower with a lot more track on the ground to soak up the rough ground. A lot of guys are willing to accepted that with the ability to have a roll up door, but like most things there are no free rides. Deere used to have roll up doors and they went back to swinging doors. I have run the latest Taki machines with the roll up door and it seems robust, and they have had decades longer than anyone to get it right, but the cabs are really tall to allow for that. When you look at it cost is also a factor, roll up doors are more expensive and it takes a dedicated cab to allow for it. The small companies like Kubota and Taki are better able to utilize roll ups in their machines since they only have a handful of machines and there are all large frame machines. Someone like CAT, CASE, and BC which use the same cab over numerous machines of different sizes that becomes an issue. You lose the commonality of build that keeps prices down over the entire line of machines. They could certainly offer two cabs one with a roll up door and one with a swing door, but so far no one seems wanting to do that. It would likely make that roll up door option pretty expensive, and add more complexity to the build process. However like most things like this, if enough people talk about it things tend to happen.
I have only operated a CTL with a rollup door and found it far superior to a hinged one. First is a safety issue, machine catches fire, can't get out cause the arms stop the door opening. The only other exit is out the rear window and over the fire. Bloody good safety feature, Not. In all the years I operated old school excavators (no AC) the front window was up doing all kinds of work including ripping rock and demolition. Not once did the window fall down that was locked up
Maybe a lot of Skid steer buyers don't want their cab to be 3" taller to accommodate a roll up door.
Before buying the CAT 289D we tried a Kubota, I wasn't a fan of the roll up door because it was difficult to open/close and really effected head room for me (6'3")
You can always look at a JCB with the one arm boom and side door.
I can bend a cat door enough to get out the front door if I have to. I’m not heavy set though.
And if I needed another reason to dislike them... Saturday a job superintendent asked me to stop by his site and move half a dozen pallets of material with their Cat. I dropped the bucket off and mounted the forks, only to find that the forks were set just a little too wide to get into the pallets. So, of course, the solution to that is to get out and move them in a little bit. But when you can't get out the door unless the arms are all the way down, it makes it kinda hard to adjust the forks because they're sitting hard on the ground. And of course since it was Saturday, I was the only one on the site... (I dropped them back off, and picked one side up by hand, while kicking a concrete block underneath to support them. Got it done, but it shouldn't have to be that difficult.)
I agree 100% on this. Would never buy one because I feel like I am doing the limbo every time I get in and out of the machine. Also forget any chance of ever wearing a hard hat while operating. Yes, I can take it off but then it must be stored which is also impossible to do without throwing it in the floor (not a good idea either).
I'm 6'2" and have plenty of room in a Tak to wear my hard hat while operating. Some heavy wire works great for a hard hat hook.
Why don't manufacturers build escape hatches into the roofs? That way when flames are rolling up the back window and you can't swing the front door open because the arms are stuck you can just knock out the ceiling and climb up and out. Would also be good if the machine flips nose down, nose up or on it's side. Of course a roof hatch wouldn't help with day to day inconveniences but for emergencies it seems like a no brainer to me.
I think the swing door would be a lot better if they made it so you could have the arms up a few inches before the door would hit it would make it a bit harder to get in but not too bad, having to have to arms down to the last hair is really annoying. The height would only be an issue if you wanted to operate with it open. I could only dream of operating with a hard hat, I am lucky if I have enough head room to begin with with most cabs with nothing on my head. It is annoying, but overall I find I don't run into it much. In all my years of swing doors never had a situation of having to get out. But if I did, the glass isn't very strong. Don't ask me how I know (broken glass doors a few times). One kick and there will be nothing left of the glass. As far as getting out the back, i've never tried but even at 6'5" 290lbs I know if the machine caught fire I could get out that back window pretty dahm quick.
All manufacturers are required to put a glass breaking hammer in the cab for that very reason. You knock out the front glass.
That doesn't match my experience. The one CAT that I sometimes operate had the front window broken (job superintendent/part owner of the company, put a branch through it), and it left about a third of the glass in the frame. (It's not one smooth sheet, but three different pieces that meet at just a bit of an angle.) It's laminated glass, not tempered glass. Having that partial windshield was worse than having none at all, so I took my feet to it, and had to really work at it to get it out of there.