Category Archives: construction equipment

Suction or Vacuum Excavator: Most Effective Construction Vehicle

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Are you looking for heavy equipment that has the capability to dig potholes without damaging the existing utility wires under the ground? If your answer is ‘yes’, then without wasting any more time on browsing the other websites, read the following discussion and get to know about the most effectual heavy equipment for the accomplishment of your purpose.

Vacuum or suction excavator is a construction automobile which has the capacity to dig exact and clear-cut potholes without leaving behind any muddle. Vacuum exhuming is a technique of applying air or water to excavate holes around the existing useable cables with the purpose of rendering them without any damage. As, loads of wires and pipes are assembled under the ground, there are strict guidelines for the contractors regarding the drilling technique of the land.

Applications of Suction or Vacuum Excavator

Vacuum excavator is transportable and twofold purpose weighty paraphernalia which is used to dig holes with high pressure water or air and with the help of varied potent vacuum systems. For electrical tasks, this suction excavator is employed in accomplishing several power line projects like setting up underground wires for traffic signal, lighting work in streets and highways and so on. This excavator is widely used in following areas:

  • Vacuum scathing produced by pavement saws.
  • Preeminent heavy apparatus for cleaning duct banks, manholes and vaults.
  • This excavator helps the construction sites to remain free from the drilling liquid that mostly surge from bore fissures.
  • It can easily dig small-sized trenches in less space area where the contractors are unable to bring any heavy excavating equipment.
  • This vacuum excavator has the ability to excavate holes easily for assembling light poles and other utilities.

Reasons to Choose Vacuum Excavator in Construction Site

In construction heavy equipment industry, vacuum excavator is acknowledged as the effectual damage avoidance apparatus best applied for digging holes under the ground surrounded by useable pipelines and flexes. Here in the below cited points, you will get to know about the several benefits of suction excavator:

  • Majority of the construction business owners consider this heavy equipment as the preeminent for cleaning mud and valve boxes.
  • This excavator can be measured as big-sized wet-dry vacuum that has the ability to eradicate easily any type of material whether solid or liquid.
  • It is a cost-effective construction weighty vehicle that never creates pointless congestion.
  • This excavator has the ability to be employed on varied types of utilities like thermal, water and gas distribution methods.
  • Depending on the condition of the soil and the kind of excavator, the machinist can easily dig a pothole of 12 inch square and 5 foot deep.
  • Often, it is utilized for excavating pole holes and acts as a vacuum for extracting water from the duct bank after a heavy rain.

Nowadays, construction business possessors get plenty of options to find the best excavating heavy equipment manufacturers through internet. So, if you want to make your construction business productive, order upgraded version of suction excavator right now.

How to change a transmission on a bulldozer

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It is never easy to work on things that you do not know especially when it comes to fixing your heavy equipment and you have absolutely no knowledge how to go about with it. This is when you should depend on guys who are into fixing problem pertaining to heavy equipment. It is better that you give the machine to a mechanic who after checking the stuff will do what needs to be done with it. However, at times it becomes important for you to know a bit of fixing thing as well. You do not always get the mechanic handy and in situations like this you may experience the real trouble. You have work in hand and your machine is just not ready to work. It could be due to some problem with the transmission and in order to get it fixed, you need to open up a lot of stuff and the transmission out.

Ideally in a bulldozer, the transmission is located near the engine crankshaft and it remains attached there with the help of a flywheel or a clutch. In order to change the transmission, it is first critical to remove the stuff carefully from the place it is located. In case of a bulldozer once has to be very careful while getting it removed beside the engine crankshaft. He needs to be make sure that he does not mess up with the crankshaft or that will lead to further complication with the machine. You got to be absolutely sure that you know how to work things out and get the transmission replaced.

To learn things in a much better way, it is advisable that one should go through the user manual as the procedure is stated with pictures so that one does not go through a lot of hardship to understand how to change the transmission. You can also check how the mechanic works on your dozer. The way he spreads out the engine crankshaft and from there he pulls out the transmission. You can even ask the mechanic if you can give it a shot while he is there monitoring your work. In this way, you can practically try to change the transmission but if you feel that you are confident and can do it again, it is prudent that you do it in front of an expert so that in case you go wrong somewhere dealing with it, there will someone who can set things right for you.

One more method that you can adopt to learn to change the transmission is through training videos. Well, you get to learn a lot of stuff from there. You only have to enter the things you want to see and you get ample of options. Just pick the one you feel you should watch and check if that is the one you are looking for. For instance, if you want to check videos where people are shown changing the transmissions, you can do that on YouTube. It really helps but if you want to do it practically, better try things in front of an expert.

 

Construction equipment fuel consumption chart

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While many construction companies are spending a good deal of money in doing some research work pertaining to what can be done to reduce fuel consumption and continue with the same productivity. They are yet to come out with some solid answers. Though many heavy equipment producing companies are already in the mode of producing machines that they claim are fuel efficient but it seems that in order to make it fuel efficient they have to cut short some features of the machine somewhere which is not appreciated by the construction companies. What the construction companies are looking for is a solution to this problem which does not compromise on the existing features. So you just can’t take away what you have already given in order to make lives a bit comfortable. It is perhaps not the way it works. The heavy equipment companies have to come out with some solid solutions that do not play around with what they already have.

This has led to the need of creating a chart so that the companies can analyze where things are going wrong and what they can do to fix it. They also have to keep into consideration the cost that they will incur in making a machine which is highly fuel efficient as that might not have proportionate number of buyers. So overall, they might find themselves to be in a bigger problem which they might never want to be in the first place.

Komatsu has introduced PC200-8 Hybrid excavator which shows an exorbitant reduction in fuel consumption. It claims that the Hybrid excavator is able to reduce fuel consumption by around 25% than the conventional excavators sold by the company. They are also planning to make their machines more eco-friendly. This has been a challenge that many heavy equipment companies are facing for many years. As per their claims, they also state that there has been a fuel reduction of maximum 41% on sites where the upper structure of the machine turns more often. In their tests they have taken 3 different types of companies. First is the one that deals with waste soil disposal, another is into civil engineering and the third one does sludge disposal. The PC200-8 Hybrid excavator has shown up to 30% fuel reduction in the first company, 31% in the second company and the maximum was 41% in the third company.

Simultaneously there are other heavy equipment companies that have jumped in the race of producing machines that are fuel efficient and also provides a great deal of comfort to its users. Caterpillar wanted to ensure that people keep their trust on its products and do not change their loyalties to other companies and therefore they have brought in a series of different kinds of machines that are fuel efficient. However, the next big question that comes up is that are buyers ready to pay the cost of machines that promises of fuel reduction. Well, there are few giant construction and mining companies that are more interested in saving fuel and hence they would like to go for such products but for the rest, they have to wait for the prices of such machines to go little down.

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Soil Stabilization- Cat Mixer

When you need to build real solid house, roads, offices etc. you need to believe in the best soil stabilizing machine. It is the soil stabilizer that plays an instrumental role in giving the solid shape to your houses or to the pavements or anything that you see that involves cement. Earlier in most of the developed countries, soil stabilizing machines were not used to make roads. However, now it has become a common practice and you can see soil stabilizer being used everywhere where people are constructing roads. It increases the power of the soil and cement to up to 6 times or ever more than that thus giving a solid shape to the roads. This is why we see the roads to be in shape for a pretty long time. The amount of traffic that moves on the roads on a daily basis is immense and one can easily make out how solid the roads have to be to take the entire load daily.

Nowadays, construction companies that take up work to develop roads make use of green technologies like co-polymer based products, synthetic polymers, tree resins, calcium chloride, calcite etc. By using these techniques, it actually prevents the water to reach the treated layer thus ensuring that the life of the road is lengthened and also the cost is minimized. Some of the companies that manufacture soil stabilizing machines are CAT, Terex, etc. However, the one that has shown incredible sale in the last few years in the one produced by CAT.

 

The CAT Ss-250 and RM 300 are few of the much known brands that have been the eye candy of most of the construction companies. The RM 300 is compatible with both depth reclamation and soil stabilization. It has been installed with sliding operator’s station, automatic depth control, pressurized cab etc. It is perhaps the one that has been fitted with many instrumental features that one may find quite significant to use. The rear wheels in the machine can be driven by a separate hydraulic pump. This is done to give more tractive effort.

Though Cat soil stabilizers quite expensive but a must in almost every construction site. The companies who do not compromise on the quality of their construction unarguably go for mixers made by CAT. Other companies are also good in terms of quality. However, it may be not as user friendly as one can experience with CAT stabilizers. Therefore, it has been the most preferred machine by countless of small as well as big construction and mining companies.

If one needs to buy a CAT stabilizer, he/she can do it by directly contacting the company or can find it easily on internet. Buying it on internet will give him a lot of options and also at a price that he may not find anywhere else. He can also opt for bank loan or finance to buy the machine. So money will not be an obstacle when it comes to the overall growth of the business.

 

Looking to buy a bulldozer? Get some help here

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If you are a person who likes to do some research before deciding to buy a product, then you are moving on the right track in becoming a wise buyer. Not many give an intense research before buying an item and trust that the salesman tells them. If you go by the words of the salesman and then buy the product you end up with 2 possibilities. Either you get a good product that you will cherish using it or you will get something that is not worth your money. Eventually, you will lose some money in that transaction. Imagine the same situation when you are buying an expensive bulldozer. You just go by the words of the salesman and buy it. You later understand that you actually wanted some other features with some other benefits and now you don’t have much option.

We would be stressing upon few points that you must do before you buy a bulldozer.

Know your requirement and conduct an extensive research on the product:-

It is very important to understand what you are actually looking for in a bulldozer. Today, heavy equipment manufacturing companies have come down with “n” number of models having various features and every additional feature will cost you more. Therefore, it becomes extremely crucial for you to first know your requirements before you even start your research work. If you have a mighty project in hand then the set of requirements will be different but if the project is small then you may need an altogether different set of machine. Once you have known your business need, the next step is to do some research on the machine. As stated, bulldozers are manufactured by various companies and they come up with different models. So you need to study the kind of model you may need for completing the project.

Allocate funds for the purchase:-

While you are on with your research, you should also keep in mind another important aspect which is the amount you can allocate for the purchase. Check if you have enough funds to pay upfront or you want to pay via easy installments at the beginning of every month. Only when you are completely convinced that your finances are in order and you won’t have any trouble financially after purchasing the dozer, you should go ahead with the purchase.

Renting a dozer or purchasing a used one:-

Just in case, you find the amount way high and can overtly pinch your pocket, you might even want to take the option of either taking the dozer on rent or buy a used one. A used dozer will comparatively cost lesser and he may evade from feeling the heat.

Medium and small dozer are equally effective:-

If you are of the opinion that big machines are more effective then it is time to change your thought. It has been seen that in most cases a medium/small sized dozer has been more effective than a large sized machine. So considering the kind of project and the site, you should be looking for a dozer that suits your needs.

 

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Tips to pick out your heavy equipment trailer

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Today, many types of equipment trailer are available in the market. Are you confused of what kind of trailer to choose? Yes, choosing the right equipment trailer is quite difficult if you don’t follow any tips, but at the same time it is also very important to get the trailer that suits your equipment. First of all, you have to determine what you want to load.  The next vital thing to consider is the weight of the loading thing. And finally focus on the procedure of loading and unloading it, and the vehicle which you are going to use to tow the trailer. If you are planning to find out the best trailer for your heavy equipment, just check out the following.

What are you planning to load?

A wide-range of trailers are available in the market nowadays that you can use to load everything starting from landscape materials to rock, to motor cycles and cars, to constructional equipment like tractors and bulldozers. That’s why, at first, you need to decide what you are going to load. If you are planning to haul a big rock to back up the landscape of your residential area, go for shorter landscape or utility trailer which has many sides and open, may incline for easier clear out of the load. For commercial site projects, switch to dump trailer which is well-known for its capacity of loading at least 8.4 cubic yards and 14000# GWR.

Enclosed and open trailers are also very common which are used for transporting old vehicles like cars, tractors and trucks usually at the same time. If you are more interested in moving two or more vehicle at a time, use large equipment trailer which will be capable of handling more than one vehicle. You should not be in a hurry while choosing the equipment trailer. Take enough time to find out the maximum weight carrying capacity of the trailer and how it will be stable. We have seen that many businessmen prefer to buy the equipment trailer for a short-term use. Considering all these factors, invest your money in buying the trailer so as to get full satisfaction on your trailer.

Unloading and loading process

Every heavy equipment type has its own requirements of loading. A top-notch equipment trailer will contain many options for spring-assisted ramps in contrast to easy hauling tilt. Many strong models from different manufacturers such as Moritz have on hand options like folding gates, 3rd ramp, steps for easier access to deck and some pull back places to protect your cargo.

Equipment trailers which have goosenecks attached with bed of the truck allow for a secure hold up. Though gooseneck trailer have many advantages, but its cost is quite high as they require a larger capacity of dragging and an efficient hitching system so as to ensure an easy installation of the gooseneck in to your truck’s bed.

Try to pick up a local dealer who is experienced in selling both new and used equipment trailer to find out the best equipment trailer for yourself.

Create a descent looking website of your construction company

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We often define ourselves through our personality, the way we carry ourselves, the way we communicate and how presentable we are in front of others. Well, it may not be so hard to have a good personality and be presentable to sell yourself to others but when it comes to selling your company to get good businesses from others; it is way too difficult job. If you are a guy who is not so technically savvy with computers and programming stuffs, you might need help from someone who knows about these stuffs and have experience in creating websites for other companies. You got to get hold of one such guy and create a website for your company.

When you are in the construction industry, you got to be far more presentable than your competitors. You need to have a website that is unparallel to the websites of all the other companies. Having said that, it does not imply that you should make the website way too appealing for others to lose interest from viewing your site. It is ideally recommended that you take some time out to check the websites designed by other big construction companies and try to keep things simple. People do not like to get into something that is complicated; so if you try to make your site look jazzy and highly upbeat, it may not go well with the viewers and you may have to end up changing the website again to make it look normal.

Try to put as much information as you can:-

A website of a company is like a guidebook that speaks everything about it. Hence, it is imperative that you put in as much information as you can in a systematic manner. Putting information in a haphazard manner can lead to confusion which will not be appreciated by the viewers. Try to keep it as simple as you can but as the same time it should be attractive and not look like you have copied some redundant website. You should mention about the different kinds of projects done by your company and also state the upcoming projects. Try to put some pictures of your work that will make the site look presentable and attractive and will also let the viewers know about your work.

Keep tabs to differentiate about your works:-

It is important to highlight the projects your company has completed for which if you need to put them into different tabs, you should do it. It is not advisable to put everything in one page. On the contrary, you should make use of tabs to differentiate your work and also put few words expressing your thoughts on the project. Try to write all positive as it can draw more customers towards you.

Hire good website designer for this work:-

Designing a website is not everybody’s cup of tea and it needs men who have undergone special training and have learnt to design websites. You should hire someone who has done work like these in the past. He can turn out to be a real job-getter for you.

Cat 140H transmission problems

Heavy equipment are prone to some or the other problems. The problems that occur in the heavy equipment can be attributed to more than one factor. You have to make sure that you keep a check at regular intervals on all the factors that ultimately leads to issues in the machine. Other than that, heavy equipment of any popular brand can develop problems over the time. Regular maintenance is very critical and one just can’t skip this important aspect. Though heavy equipment manufacturing companies work hard to produce machines that require less maintenance but it does not make any sense if one demands a machine that should work forever without the need of any maintenance work. It just does not work that way. It has been witnessed that a lot of heavy equipment have issues with their transmission which is considered to be one of the most critical organ in the heavy equipment anatomy.

Operators experience different kinds of problems with the transmission. Issues like the gears are not working properly or even if you change the gears to increase the speed of the machine, it just does not move fast. Well, when someone is experiencing this sort of problem then they should first check if the oil is good and if it is not then it is time to change the oil and then check if things are back in place. People using CAT 140H usually experiences this issue. The change in the gear does not help the machine to move faster. The solution to this problem is to get the side covers removed and clean all the trans-electrical connectors for the solenoids. At times, people are not able to move the gear beyond a certain point. Probably they are not getting the voltage in the coil which leads to this problem. The solution could be changing the coil and check if that works. Most of the time the coil goes bad due to excessive heat and it cause transmission problem.

The other ideal solution when you experience issues with the transmission of CAT 140H is to call up the service center of the company and check if they send their engineers who can fix the issue. However, if you are working in a place where CAT can’t send their engineers then you can try things on your own by going through the user manual. It does speak about various kinds of transmission problems that the machine can encounter and what one needs to do to get it resolved. It is also advisable that you take help of a mechanic who knows how to deal with the issue. User manual does throw light on it but if you are a newbie who does not know how to fix it, you may end up in a bigger mess.

CAT 140H are class machines and they very rarely encounter issues and if the issue is related with the transmission, it may take no time to deal with it but if you are on your own trying few things from the user manual will be a big help.

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How did they come up with their construction equipment names? i.e. Caterpillar, Hitachi, Case, John Deere

At some point in time in our lives, we must have wondered why the names of heavy equipment manufacturing companies so unusual. For instance, why would someone ever want the name of their company to be caterpillar? Caterpillar is such a small create and why would a heavy equipment company who has big dreams and intend to grow in the coming years would want to keep the name of such a creature. Same goes with the names of other construction equipment manufacturing companies. Names like Case, Hitachi, John Deere etc. are all examples of names that somehow do not seem to fit with the size and fame of the company. But they still have them and are doing absolutely wonderful.

In order to understand why these companies have such strange names, it is important that we take a tour of their histories and try to understand the real meanings of these names.

Caterpillar:-

Let us start with Caterpillar. It is said that this name was given by a company photographer named “Charles Clements”. It was in the year 1925, when Holt Tractor Company the pioneer in the field of heavy equipment merged with Best Tractor Company. It was then that Charles Clements cried loudly that the machine is crawling like a Caterpillar. Since then the name stuck with the company and has eventually formed into one big incorporation.

John Deere:-

When we talk about the John Deere, we actually mean the heavy equipment company that is in the name of John Deere. If we check his history he was an able blacksmith who doing pretty well in the state of Illinois. But he had taken up a challenge of using a better form of equipment to plow the tough prairie soil of Illinois. Therefore, he invented the self-scouring steel plow that made lives comfortable for the farmers of that area. However, it was only in 1837 that he successfully manufactured the first commercial steel plow. He sold that piece of metal to a local farmer who found it extremely convenient and spread the word to more people in the vicinity. He went into a partnership but that did not last long and had to come out of it. Things did not stop for him there and he continued his good work thereby producing more of such machines. He was of the belief that he will produce the best of machines for his consumers. Eventually in 1868, he incorporated his company.

Hitachi:-

Like many others, Hitachi also has an interesting story behind its name. It was founded in 1910 by Namihei Odaira. He was an electrical engineer by profession. The product that the company manufactured for the first time was an electric induction motor that was predominantly used for mining copper. The company started with its operation in a mining company located in Hitachi, Ibaraki. The name “Hitachi” also means “Sunrise”. This is how they stuck to the name of Hitachi and from there they started their journey from selling hard disk drive subsidiary to construction equipment to all over the world.

Mid range crawler dozers are widely accepted by customers in the construction domain

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Working in a small space will not allow huge equipment and you have to restrict the use to either mid-range or small equipment. When we talk about heavy equipment, it is not only about those big machines that you often see at construction sites but it is also about equipment that you see in your backyard clearing the garden or clearing the snow off the road. You do not always need a big dozer to clear the snow from the road. Imagine if the road is not that big to accommodate a big dozer, it will not be able to complete the work. In such a situation what you need the most is a mid range crawler dozer.

The demand for the mid range crawler dozer has increased over the last few years. People have begun to realize that it is not all about big machines but at times we also need something smaller in size to get the work done. This is how people have understood the importance of such machines and has led to the growing acceptability of it. Before we speak further on this, we need to understand what category of machine come under mid range and what goes above that. Machines that have horsepower between 130 to 200 hp are in the mid-range category. Anything falling short of that is a small machine and machines that have more than 200-300 hp fall in the higher range of machines.

A reports also suggest that the mid-range machines play a dominant role in the construction industry which was not the case few decades ago. However, not everybody likes to purchase high range equipment and keep themselves content with the lower version. Irrespective of the construction company being a big one or just a newbie, they all prefer mid range machines. The maneuverability of such machines are simpler and faster and are therefore considered potent for work that is meant for small range as well as high range equipment. Caterpillar’s Dave Cusac feels that though some companies want mid range machines to have hp more than 300 but due to certain technical alignment, it has been limited to the range of 150 to 215 hp.

Mid range crawler dozers have varied uses. They are not just used for single category of work but are used for several purposes and this is what makes the machine more in demand. Case Construction Equipment brand marketing manager has bifurcated the use of the machine on the basis of the horsepower it possess. According to him, the machine with hp of 130 is used for construction of roads and bridges but not into residential construction. Machines with hp of 150 are also used for building of bridges and roads but they can simultaneously spread their wings into larger jobs. Machines more than 214 hp can be used for mining, overburden clearing and similar operations. Having said this, it does not mean that these machines do not have the capability to perform heavy duty jobs.