New Holland/ Kobelco E-50

[245dlc]

Well before my lay off today I had the opportunity to do some more golf course work with Anseeuw's New Holland/ Kobelco E-50 excavator. It's the first excavator from this manufacturer that I have had the.....experience to operate. It's also the first excavator with a tilt rotator I have operated my boss told me it cost an additional $20,000 on top of the machine's price. I found the machine to be quite compact so much so that a 5'6" 200lb man has get in the door sideways as it's to damned narrow to go in straight on. The cab is rather cramped and definitely made for small Asian people. lol It does have air conditioning but only has two vents for it in the back of the tiny cab and they blow pretty much straight up and can hardly keep up with any solar gain. We've been having a lot of 30 degree celsius days here and it's been very sunny we've hardly had a drop of rain for the past two months so doing anymore than eight hours in that cab is out of the question as I've usually got a headache by dinner time. The machine has pretty decent power even with the added length of the tilt rotator and a 30" wide ditching bucket and has a repectable amount of speed however I do feel it kind of lacks in reach but it is a mini afterall. Today I had an opportunity to look at a E55Bx which is the new model and a lot of these shortcoming do look like they have been remedied but I would have to get in the cab and try it out first but one thing for sure is that the A/C vent problem has been resolved by providing at least two to the front of the cab and the A/C controls to the right hand side front of the cab and I believe it also has proportional hydraulic controls finally. So to conclude my little "spiel" on this machine are a couple videos I made of me loading a special dump wagon for golf courses.

[Stock]

Excellent work and video there bert, at $20k seems a tad expensive for a mini add on in your honest opinion is it worth it.............

[Garry]

Cool .. or not so maybe .. those zero tail swings are really tight .. did the tilt angle add considerable weight for a zero tail swing machine ? .. Weve thought about them before now but didnt really think they'ed be worth it unless you were a contractor .. but it looks very handy , was it at Engcon one ?

[245dlc]

Yeah I think if a person had their own machine it could be a tad pricey. It is very handy and I had used it a few days before to dig out a couple culverts and really liked it for that but that was also largely for the shape of the bucket it allowed me to scoop up the culvert and cradle it to a truck and trailer without having to use a sling or chain or anything like that. This tilt-rotator is made by Indexator North America a company based in Sweden. I think it's a well built tool but I like the Eng-Con design since you can get that integral quick coupler and remove the tilt rotator without having to the leave the cab unlike this one where it's more of a permanent attachment as it's pinned onto the excavator. As to whether or not I would buy such an attachment when I do finally buy my first machine is a good question it's very tempting but I think if I could afford it I'd go with the Eng-Con design as I would be able to remove the tilt rotator when it's not needed like when I'm ripping frost in the winter and because the hose connections are routed right through the coupler so they're is no jumping out of the cab to hook or unhook hydraulic hoses, plus the likelihood of damage late on a Friday afternoon when the hydraulic shop is closed is minimized to a fairly good extent. But I think when I do buy my first excavator which could be in the next little while if I get any calls for that kind of work I'll probably just go with a tilt bucket and a hydraulic coupler.

Before I forget here's the manufacturer's website for North America

http://www.indexatornorthamerica.com/gallery-res.php

[ianoz]

Great Videos Bert . I suppose the golfer came over and abused ya for spoiling his shot .

[245dlc]

Lol, no they just laughed it off, they're pretty understanding and the membership makes sure people understand we have a short season in which to do work, so things work out quite well.

[Muz]

Sorry to hear of your impending lay off Bert .. hope you manage to find some more work soon Ive been thinking about tilt rotators for a while, but the three main drawbacks for me in the hire market are

1: Cost
2: Alteration of the geometry for digging power
3: More bits to wear out in pins bushes etc

I think you would never recover the cost of it on our self drive market, which is a market quite peculiar to this side of the pond

At Bauma a few years ago I was watching guys use breakers and grabs with the drop off hitches, and hydraulic lines plumbed through the hitch .. they looked really tidy and fast to change, but I wondered what the ingress of dirt into the connectors would be like ?

Good info anyway fella

[ianoz]

Lol, no they just laughed it off, they're pretty understanding and the membership makes sure people understand we have a short season in which to do work, so things work out quite well.

Well ,I guess they are in the same boat .Would be a bit hard golfing with snow shoes on and how would you find the ball.How would you hit the ball buryed in a snow drift .

[245dlc]

Maybe paint it red so you have a chance seeing it in the snow. Lol!!

[Dan]

Maybe paint it red so you have a chance seeing it in the snow. Lol!!

Actually they play with flourescent yellow/orange balls ...... oohh missus

[ianoz]

Muz , Is most of work hire , for the self drive market , or do you try and have the machines with your own operators on them ?


It would seem to me ,an excavator was designed to dig in a straight line towards the machine,So turning the bucket sideways would put pressure on components that they were not really designed to take that action .All excavator Handbooks i have seen say do not use bucket to brush the area clean using the slew .

Bert, was there a do's and don't manual for the hitch? .Myself i could see an inexperenced operator trying to do things that it should not do . Certainly not saying Bert did anything to abuse the machine , but in the wrong hands the damage bill could be staggering .

[245dlc]

I imagine there is an operator's manual somewhere but I never saw it. There's little doubt in my mind that a "green" operator should be educated properly so as to keep repair costs minimal. I doubt if sweeping a few crumbs from one side to the other would damage anything, but I suppose damage is possible if you try to dig hard with the bucket "sideways". But I do like being able to use the bucket like a bit of a cement trowel when I'm finishing backfilling something like a trench in a tight spot, but I don't much pressure on it when I do that I just want to gently brush the dirt, gravel etc. so it's smooth and level.

[ianoz]

Hi Bert , So found a new job yet , , or still in honeymoon mode .

[245dlc]

Yeah I started with a earthworks and roadbuilding contractor on Tuesday about fifteen to twenty minutes closer to home than the last place. I'm running a Kobelco SK350 they bought used in Texas. Fairly decent machine but it's got a hydraulic thumb on it which I loathe due to all the extra weight on the end of the stick. But it's got a neat looking bucket that never gums up with clay unlike conventional digging and ditching buckets. I'm loading 25 tonne Cat and Volvo ADT's in three to four passes with clean clay out of a borrow pit to build up the floor and dikes.

[Stock]

Delighted for you Bert are dumper drivers as silly over there as everywhere else................