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DPete
Steering is by a tiller bar like any other diff steer machine, the only twist is a lack of twist. You no longer twist for directional control, it is a toggle very similar to a fingertip control type machine.
Speed has several ways of control.
One way is a proportional "dial" on the tiller that you roll with your thumb to speed up or slow down
There is also a series of selections on a dial that work similar to the autoshift feature in some machines. You can dial in 1.5 F, 2.5 R which is a pretty good working range, and several other settings, I do not remember all of them, but the one I liked is the user programmable, where you set your selection of forward and reverse speed, then a second forward speed, that you "shift" up to after you fill the blade.
With any of the pre selected speed ranges, the thumb wheel changes it when you desire, then at the next directional shift it goes back to the pre set setting.
You can also select full manual, and just use the thumb wheel.
The last way of controlling speed is with the foot operated speed modulator.
It is a lot of choices, but once you set it for your style and conditions, it is very easy to use.
The
Hjolli
What I recall from operating it would lead me to believe it would be a strong ripper tractor. You can select any speed with the drive, and have full torque from stall right up to max speed. You can modulate speed without loosing torque. If you need less torque to control slip, you could dial down the engine speed as well which would reduce torque at a given speed, and do it with better control than a torque converter.
The speed control allows for very precise creep control, and I believe it would work well to control track slip.
Can anyone explain how any of this is different from a hydrostatic machine??:beatsme
With a hydrostatic you lose a lot of energy as heat through the system and from other loses, pumps motors etc. Electric drive has come a long way in the past few years and is more efficient now. With a dozer your not going to have it I don't think, but with other platforms you can recover some of the energy during braking. Down the road if this pans out it will probably be used in more machines.
Also would you have full torque at low speed with hydro?
I think one more thing that you can do and I think Cat is doing with the electric drive is load sensing. It will reduce speed to keep from stalling the tractor under heavy load, then as the load lightens pick up again.
All I'm saying is I don't think this machine is THAT revolutionary compared to what others (including Cat on smaller models) have been doing for years. No doubt it is a big improvement in fuel consumption, noise level & visibility over the D7RII and will more than likely be a pretty good tractor. I just think that it has been a little "over hyped" because of the greenies making the correlation with an electric drive anything saving the earth from evil carbon dioxide gas.
I don't want to sound negative but the guys with all the Cat priase, have you operated any other new units lately? I know some Cat guys that would buy anything with a Cat sticker on it. Deere and Komatsu have hydrostatic units that have increased fuel savings as well as some of the other "new" innovations. I would like to see a side by side comparison by someone that doesn't have a picture of Cat under their name or come from the Great State of Obama.
The ultimate question I'd pose to you is about Deere's own line. Hydrostatics will probably endure into the future for some time, but what will Deere be doing with its wheel loaders (if not dozers)? Is Deere *always* going to have a mechanical, TC with LUC transmission? Or will you begin to look at hybrids or hydrostatics? Do your engineers consider one propulsion technology to be superior to the other in that regard? (On a parallel, Volvo could have pursued hydrostatic technology in the L220, akin to what Liebherr has done... but instead decided to go with Hybrid. Was that truly just a marketing perspective? That "hybrid" is somehow better than "optimized mechanical?" I don't know the answer to these, btw... )
Usually with electronic controls the operator can adjust the sensitivity of the control response from the Monitor System.Dirt dogg? Why dont you like the quickness of the controls and the pressur it takes to control them, i love the T series dozers and M series graders just because of how sensitive the controls are