Foot throttle on a skid steer? I've never heard of that one.
Pretty common actually, most OEM's offer them. Wouldn't be without it personally.
Not excited about no screen, also the precleaner bolted to the side just looks bad. As to no foot throttle, I don't know why they would not have one. Great way to reduce fuel useage.
x2 looks like a safety issue and that pre cleaner is asking to get ripped off.
I don't understand how you'd really use a ft throttle on a skid steer. I guess I'd have to sit in one.
I'm used to "normal" style machines with hand and foot controls.
I do like the side door on that machine. It would allow a person to get in and out of the machine with the boom in the air a bit. Would be VERY handy for me actually.
I use my S250 for loading logs on a wood processor. I pull a log or two off a pile, then I have to get out to cut it down or trim and branches off. If I could leave the log off the ground a ft or two it would work much better!
"Normal" style to you, Hand/foot controls are rapidly going by the wayside. Bobcat is one of the few OEM's that pushes them anymore. Why use all of your limbs to run mechanical controls? Wears you out. I used to be diehard H/F controls.
When running Pilot or EH controls the foot throttle is nice for adjusting your speed especially for new operators. unlike your manual sticks in your bobcat, you only need the touch of a feather to move pilot controls and being a short stick its tough for new people to get used to the range so its easier to just hold the stick forward and run the foot throttle, its really nice for lift and carry operations. We use the foot throttle almost exclusively on all of our machines.
it seems that case people are the ones who take much pride in their skid steer foot throttles. i had the foot throttle in the j c b for 500 hours and finally took it out. i find that the foot throttle is just too much hassle because you have to use it almost exclusively to make it really work out.
on the other hand, it makes VERY much sense to have a DEcelerator petal! the articulated farm tractors have these and it makes more sense to me than a regular foot throttle. i need the rpms most of the time on the skid steer but there are times when it would be nice to hit the petal if your waiting for cows to move out of your way or something.
most people either love or hate foot throttles i have found. my buddy bought a new 200k farm tractor and first thing he did was cut out the foot throttle because it was right where he wanted to rest his foot.
You couldn't catch me dead with a new CNH machine but you also wouldn't find me buying a machine without a foot throttle, I love them and they have really reduced our fuel useage as we never need the full power of our SSL's.
The D series Cats use electronic throttles that are a dial and they use electronic foot throttles with throttle smoothing and a decellerator function when the hand throttle is at full throttle.
He must be a Green or Red guy, I'd never be without my foot throttle in my Fendt. With the Vario CVT and TMS you use the pedal to just drive it like a car, RPM's are automatically adjusted to the load and the transmissions being a CVT does everything else on its own as well, you drive around with a go pedal and stop pedal. They also allow you to adjust the scaling of the pedal by adjusting the maxinimum speed. This is nice when chopping, you can have it set to 34mph then when you get in the field you can pull it back to 10mph for driving next to the chopper, this rescales the pedal and gives you better control. Of course Fendt also have the agressiveness setting on the joystick that allows you to set the sensitivity/accelleration rate. I'd never own another tractor without a foot throttle. Especially for packing silage, your hands are busy running the hydraulics, you need the foot throttle I don't think you'd find anyone who would pack without one.
Go pedal/stop pedal. There is a "Clutch" but its plastic as you only use it as a safety interlock to start the tractor. They also put it in there for new operators when they get flustered and go "oh snit", kind of an emergency pedal in a way too. Only one brake pedal because we have Dual circuit braking on this one due to the amount of time we spend on the road.
on a volvo, you definitely have more foot/leg room by removing the foot throttle. the foot throttle is right where i want to rest my foot.
bobcat has always been the major player in the skid steer market, and bobcats until recently never had a foot throttle, so i would argue that the majority of skid steer operators do not use a foot throttle.
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Bobcat has also always been a major proponent for foot controls so I would see why they never worried about foot throttles. Possibly why they have had the poorest EH controls as well.
In our Cat's they have the foot throttle for your right foot and a raised hump for your left, makes things very comfortable as your feet sit at the same angle. Now if you do not want to use it, there is still room next to it or behind it, but not a ton.
I just can't wait to have th D series where there is no cable anymore and its sealed into the cab.
Totally agree!! I rented one of those JCB looking Volvos and have ran all the Cat skid steers and the throttle pedal was a bad idea in my opinion. I mean if your machines starts to bog and then you throttle it, it's lugging the motor and fighting to get RPM's back up. The throttle just didn't flow with the movement. A decal pedal would be great like a dozer...or course hydrostatic and a varying throttle just don't jive in my opinion.
The Volvos are JCB's, I have noticed sometimes when digging into a pile it can take the motor a second to catch up, if I were doing heavy work all day though I would run the foot throttle higher or just keep the hand throttle up. Every operator is different though. personally I struggle with Pilot and EH controls with the hand throttle all the way up because I never run it that way so I have a hard time "finessing".
The D series has a decel option once the hand throttle is all the way up.
I guess I don't really understand why on a hydro drive setup you would need to vary the throttle to the point of needing a foot pedal?
Are you guys running the drive controls full bore and using a throttle pedal to adjust speed?
I set the throttle to about where I need it and generally leave it there. Finesse with bucket movement, machine movement, etc is done by the controls.
Yes, you run the speed stick all the way forward and use the throttle to adjust your speed. Mot of our tasks on the farm are lift and carry so the foot throttle is very nice. Now on traditional mechanical sticks I think it would be a different story, but with the limited movement of Pilot and Eh controls I feel its much nicer to use the throttle to control speed.