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Volvo / IR - MT2000

Nick Abeyta

Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2008
Messages
22
Location
Temecula, CA
Any Pros -or- Cons about Volvo's MT-2000 from IR? I see how IR totally jumped ship with their road division. - Could it be they foresaw the mess we're in now? Or is the age of the "Jetsons" just around the corner?
 

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
They have some pretty good pictures on the ingersoll website. The machine itself looks nice, I wouldn't want to try to fix it though.
 

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
Just saw a write up about the IR/Volvo MT 2000....looked like an Ingersoll with a funky paint job.
 

385Diggin' Doug

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
91
Location
Pennsylvania
MT2000 Demo

We are scheduled to demo one in the upcoming weeks for two days.Has anyone been around these mechanicly or operating them?Any major differences over the others or is a mill a mill.
 

Toegrinder

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2009
Messages
131
Location
CO
Occupation
Milling Foreman
or should i say exactly...couldn't find the edit button... :-/
 

vkequip

New Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2009
Messages
1
Location
kansas city
Here's what's up on the Volvo MT2000.

Ingersoll Rand sold their milling machines to Wirtgen, waited for the noncompete contract to expire, then they hired back all their engineers from Wirtgen. They built a new IR mill in 2007, it never went into production because Volvo was in the process of purchasing IR's road machinery business. Volvo bought IR, and now Volvo is now producing the old IR rollers, mills, and pavers as Volvo brand equipment.
 

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
Ir

IR made some of the better mills way back when, I remember getting our @sses kicked on sq yds by a 7ft cuttin one back in the early 90s.

IR was also sued in and lost for around 17 million back in the 90s as well, something about the machine backed over the groundmans foot. From what I hear now they have some pretty annoying safetys on the track travel control when its up out of the ground.

Then again Wirtgen are annoying as well with that travel control speed cut when the tracks are turned more than 5 degrees either way.

In the cut, I'd like to see an IR/Volvo against RX500/W2000/PR600, with a good operator that knows how it would probably keep up if not outright beat them. IR had a great gear drive system which put max HP to the ground.
 

Blue Collar

Active Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
37
Location
Indiana
anybody heard anything about whether the stimuls money will keep our mills busy next year also with more resufacing work.
 

milling_drum

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
725
Location
out west lately
Occupation
asphalt mill operator (ret)
I heard only part of the money came out and that this year alot of big projects were cut short due to lack of funding....alot more next year, supposed to be steady for a few years.

That stimulus nonsense will take years......
 

chincot

Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
9
Location
usa
I just recently attended a Volvo CST course on the new Volvo MT2000 Mill and I was thoroughly impressed with the unit. It was a mechanics course and being around heavy equipment for the past 20yrs, I'm gonna say they've really put their stamp on it.
This unit was in the design phase for about 6yrs now and they just recently this year released it for production. It was tested for 3yrs non-stop under field like conditions, and it seems they've got most of those bugs worked out.
The only concerns I have about is how well customer service is going to be with it. I guess we'll just wait and see. You can also tell that the quality is far better than the machines Ingersoll-Rand produced at that plant. That is where they make all the rollers and pavers and now graders. I was at that plant several years ago when they were IR, and it looks nothing like it now. What a change. They must be paying those people pretty good. Seems like all the workers are pretty upbeat when I've talked with them.
The course was really good, better than the Komatsu courses I've taken.
 

he2009

Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2009
Messages
8
Location
Temecula, CA - U.S.A.
I would start with your local state DOT, Indiana DOT in your case. They would be the first to know what effect the stimulus plan will have in the next season. Hopefully it will be in time to help those contractors who need it the most, although I think everyone by now falls into that category. - By the way what mills are you running?
 

Blue Collar

Active Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
37
Location
Indiana
how's it going he2009, i run a w1000 and w1200 90% of the time and then help out with our w2000's when i got nothing going on but here lately i havent spent much time around our big mills, cause our smaller machines start earlier and finish later in the year. And a lot of our guys hate running the small mills because its alot of bull#### milling some times, but i like it cause i'm by myself
 

Turtle

Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Messages
24
Location
Florida
Occupation
president of Turtle Southeast, Inc.
We ran 2 separate demo's last year with the MT2000, loads of bells and whistles, but that's not always a good thing with a mill. They could never get it running right electronically. Lots of shutting everything down and resetting the computer. Major issues with the sonar sensors on the front tracks that is supposed to keep from running someone over. They kept malfunctioning and stopping the mill when there was a pile of millings or sometimes nothing at all in front of the tracks. Also had issues getting the folding conveyor to unload.
 

chincot

Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
9
Location
usa
No surprise as to what you described Turtle. We did have problems with the "ODS Sensors" located around the tracks with detecting too soon or going off at any old time. We have since, been calibrating each one and the problem seems to be resolved.
As far as the conveyors, the discharge, and gathering conveyors have both been updated with better results of discharging all the material possible. Haven't seen any problems with the conveyor unfolding for awhile.
I will say one thing, Volvo isn't pushing these machines down people's throats yet like IR would've. They are taking time to get the bugs out. I would not want to troubleshoot electrical problems on these, but hydraulically, they aren't too bad.
 

mde3

Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2010
Messages
7
Location
Pennsylvania
The problem with all ultrasonic sensing systems is that the return signals from the ultrasonic sensors (transducers) must be carefully modified to accomodate changes in media density. ie the air through which it passes. As such adjusting bales with thermo resistors must be added to accomodate changes in air temperature..which affects density (and as a result measurements of distance), and electronic signal modifications must be made to ignore false signal returns cause by the presence of dust or high humidity in the air. These can be dialed out electronically to a degree, but it becomes a judgement call on how much to ignore when doing this for safety reasons.

A company calle "Safety First" out of Long Island NY developed this technology for school buses back in the early nineties...it was since abandoned.

Better that Mr. Willys at Volvo Shippensburg (chief milling engineer), look into the use of infra red sensors (basically radar), which are now becoming commercially available, and have as a primary benefit, that they do not depend on air as a medium to carry the signal returns with all the consequent deviations.
 

dshetron

New Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2010
Messages
3
Location
Arkansas
The ODS sensors seem to work fine on our machine. Volvo just updated our software, so they may have changed some of the parameters.
 
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