New shop! (was: Multiple buildings, ...)

The telehandler rental will cost about $1500 for a day with the delivery on a semi. Not cheap proposition, but this stuff doesn't move itself. They are kind of interesting to drive. Three steering modes, normal front wheel steering, 4 wheel steering, and side shift steering. We made use of all of those to work our way into just the right spot. We started at about 8am, and finished around 3pm, with a short break for lunch on the porch. Lots of evaluation, hook things up, test lift, nope, set it down and revise. Plenty of places where clearances were down to less than a foot. At one point I had one tire of the telehandler past the office door threshold.
 
rabler said:
The telehandler rental will cost about $1500 for a day with the delivery on a semi. Not cheap proposition, but this stuff doesn't move itself. They are kind of interesting to drive. Three steering modes, normal front wheel steering, 4 wheel steering, and side shift steering. We made use of all of those to work our way into just the right spot. We started at about 8am, and finished around 3pm, with a short break for lunch on the porch. Lots of evaluation, hook things up, test lift, nope, set it down and revise. Plenty of places where clearances were down to less than a foot.
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a foot is a foot... better than no clearance..
that's pretty good done at 3pm. and yes that's expensive, but if you didn't have it and dropped a machine or some other mess, it could have been more expensive. Sounds like you got to have a little fun on the unit too... so figure the cost of admission to the theme park :grin:
 
rabler said:
snip> Three steering modes, normal front wheel steering, 4 wheel steering, and side shift steering. snip>
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Please clarify. Is one steering mode fronts turn left while rears turn right (4 wheel steering?) and side shift is all four turn the same way?
 
extropic said:
Please clarify. Is one steering mode fronts turn left while rears turn right (4 wheel steering?) and side shift is all four turn the same way?
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Exactly. It does require some thought when changing modes though. It will not move the wheels without steering wheel input, which makes sense from a safety perspective. But things get rather strange if you, for example, select front wheel steering with the rear tires not aligned straight.

Additionally, the unit has left right leveling, the wheels on the left or right can be lowered/raised to level the whole thing when sideways on a hill. And a ball bearing in a glass tube as a level, just like the turn and bank indicator in an airplane. Just don't try to hit the rudder pedals!!

Part of my challenge was the joystick forward/backward tilted the boom up down, and left/right retracted/extended the boom. There is a separate rocker/thumb switch on the joystick for tilting the forks. On my tractor which I have many hours of use, the left/right of the joystick is the fork tilt. The controls are electronic and have some lag. I made a point of going very slow and thinking very carefully before moving any controls, and then moving them the smallest amount I could and w a i t i n g for a response before increasing the speed a bit. I still got it wrong a few times, but nothing catastrophic.
 
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rabler said:
snip> But things get rather strange if you, for example, select front wheel steering with the rear tires not aligned straight. snip>
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So, if you switch mode from 4 wheel steering to normal, it just leaves the rears pointed where they are? You have to switch mode back and turn the steering wheel to straighten the rears, or is there another 'straighten rear tires' button?

The dexterity that some heavy equipment operators develop is a wonderment. I don't think I could begin to appreciate it if I hadn't had some limited experience.
 
extropic said:
So, if you switch mode from 4 wheel steering to normal, it just leaves the rears pointed where they are? You have to switch mode back and turn the steering wheel to straighten the rears, or is there another 'straighten rear tires' button?

The dexterity that some heavy equipment operators develop is a wonderment. I don't think I could begin to appreciate it if I hadn't had some limited experience.
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Yes, it leaves the rear tires in the old position and moves them incrementally as per the new mode. At least as best I could tell. As soon as I realized it was an issue I was very careful to manually align the rear tires carefully. I didn’t mess with it extensively as we had a full day.

It’s the cross learning that gets you. My tractor has a forward/reverse lever on the left side of the steer wheel. I have more than once flipped it into neutral when making a left hand turn on the road, thinking ‘turn signal’.
 
@woodchucker should appreciate this.

Rated for 6 Tons. Chinese tons I guess. Moving a 4-5 ton lathe, weight spread over three of them ...
IMG_4643.JPG

I think I'll cut the red polyurethane cylinder off all 4 wheels, and just run steel on concrete. Might mar the concrete a bit, but I bet it rolls better.
 
rabler said:
@woodchucker should appreciate this.

Rated for 6 Tons. Chinese tons I guess. Moving a 4-5 ton lathe, weight spread over three of them ...
View attachment 412269

I think I'll cut the red polyurethane cylinder off all 4 wheels, and just run steel on concrete. Might mar the concrete a bit, but I bet it rolls better.
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sorry.. it didn't crack, but just the same result.. caused you problems. So frustrating the crap we get..
 
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