EU pushes for lower vibrations
Several machinery manufacturers presented new cabins at Elmia Wood. The reason – upcoming demands by the European Union for lower vibrations in order to give operators better working conditions.
“The directive starts to apply in 2011/2012 and machinery owners without approved cabins will then have problems,” says Benny Sondell, CEO of Ponsse AB in Sweden.
Ponsse presented its own system to meet the upcoming demands. It is called Active Damping System and is available on three of the company’s harvesters.
Rottne also launched several models of cabs with vibration dampening but the company to go the farthest is John Deere. It has developed a totally new cabin concept that is used on all ten machines in the new E-series, which was shown in its entirety for the first time at Elmia Wood. It was a world premiere for three of the machines, including a really large forwarder for demanding final felling, the 19-tonne John Deere 1910E. Two more forwarders were also shown for the first time, the 810E and 1010E.
The new cabin has good vibration dampening and can swing 200 degrees independent of the crane. This gives the operator a better work environment with perfect visibility around the entire machine.
“The same is true for the E-series machines, which makes it easier for operators to switch between the different machines,” says John Deere’s head of communications Timo Salomaa.
Making life simpler for the operator is a fundamental principle for John Deere. At Elmia Wood the company also presented a completely new forwarder control system that allows the operator to control the crane using significantly fewer movements. This simplifies the learning process and makes the job less demanding. Operators must maintain total concentration for hours, so every machine function should be as simple as possible.
The new control system is not in any machine yet but visitors to Elmia Wood could try it out in a forwarder simulator.