was it Ollie who was going to do the same, then went full system?
s'OK Graham. It's all here
https://www.planttalk.co.uk/threads/tiltrotator-selection.187/
......but the quick answer is as follows. SS1 is for diggers with a single hammer line, double acting. Rate and direction of flow is decided by the hammer pedal (or in Doob's case, the proportional roller on the joystick) and the service (tilt or rotate) by a single momentary button on the other joystick. Cheap to install, but limited. Think of it as a tilting bucket with a separate rotation function (tilting hitch meets tilty,
falls in love, has offspring
)
SS9 - Perfectly serviceable, but the limitation is that you cannot operate the extra functions (including the tiltrotator hitch unless you are direct mount and have a separate hitch line) at the same time as the tilt function. This is what Ollie
@Gunners deliberated over because you might not be on the flat when changing attachments or you may want to adjust the tilt angle while closing a grab
.
Ahh the annual discussion about tiltrotator control systems. It makes a welcome return with the same arguments as last year!
I cant speak for others, we all do a variety of work on this forum and its what makes it so interesting. However, I will restate the thought process I went through as Doobin and countless others are no doubt going down the same path. After being a big supporter of the simple SS1 system I ended up going full fat, all singing all dancing, all the mod cons (whatever you want to call it) known to Engcon as DC2.
And here's why.
1. I was changing my business model from a labour based traditional groundworker to more owner operator and groundworker for hire. I didn't know if there would be enough work for a 3t digger and so wanted to make sure the machine and myself were spread nicely to cover landscaping, Arb work, farming, trial holes, as well as the traditional groundwork jobs. The DC2 system allowed me to run more attachments in the future and wouldn't pigeonhole me into one kind of work.
2. To make my vision of a one man army work, I wanted a selector grab. DC2 gave me the best option for running this all seamlessly which should aid production - something I was keen to achieve to justify the stupid rate I intended to charge.
3. My machine came with a single, double acting aux line. I wasn't about to change machine at great expense just to get a tiltrotator and the cost of putting an extra line on (to potentially run a 4 pipe system - a good compromise) was half the cost of DC2.
4. I gained a hydraulic hitch on the tilty - again, having watched hours of videos of operators using tiltrotators in the field, I could see the advantage of swapping attachments in less than 10 seconds and how that would help my productivity - again to justify the high rate. And I'm lazy
5. Engcon were doing very attractive finance and this played the biggest part in going DC2. When you look at the monthly payments, they really arent crazy to go top spec and this helped me get over the hurdle of the price - because the DC2 system does nearly double the basic cost. But by god is it more than twice the system.
The ability to tilt and twist as you dig has sped up the work I do no end. I've said it before, the tiltrotator makes me 20% faster on 80% of the digging I do. And my customers love it. Its won me work, its increased my profits and I honestly don't use the shovel anymore (except when being paid my rate to dig post holes like last week
)
All that said, I can completely see why you would go for SS1 on a mini digger below 3t. If you just did golf courses for example, the ability to use a grab isn't really much of a priority, or if you want to swap between machines, the cost of 2 DC2 systems would be eyewatering. I've driven the SS1 system, its very good, simple to get the hang of and I could see myself having no problem with it. And for 50% of the cost, its very tempting. I wouldn't have it on a machine above 3 ton as once you get above this weight, the attachments, gripper etc available to you make DC2 a must to get full use of the system. A 4 pipe is a better compromise if you have the aux lines, but for those that don't have that option, consider what you want to do, speak to owners of similar machines to yours and ideally ones that do your line of work. Everyone's happy to chat diggers - its why I'm typing this post!
, always said that you need to look at the big picture and whats going to happen if you decide to sell up in a couple of years or your situation changes. You want something that your going to be able to sell on with relative ease, rather than trying to off-load something that no one wants. A bit like the situation we had a number of years ago when they started putting PUP hitches underneath tiltys.
