EDITOR’S MESSAGE – On the Road
For the last two months, the editors of Compact Equipment have been questing for cool new equipment. We were in Munich for the pre-bauma media dialogue (Jan. 29-31). We hit both World of Concrete (Feb. 5-8) and The Rental Show (Feb. 11-13) in Las Vegas. We sent crews to NUCA’s utility construction trade show in Phoenix (Feb. 10-14), and we even tackled a few private brand press launches in the last two months.
Even with all this traveling, there seems to be a lull in new product launches. The culprit is compliance with Tier 4 engine regulations. It appears construction equipment manufacturers are concentrating a good majority of their time and money on researching, engineering, developing, marketing and selling these newer, more expensive diesel engines to wary customers.
But even in this stagnant equipment market, there are some innovative machines being released onto dealer lots. European compact king Wacker Neuson introduced the smallest mini excavator in the company’s growing line of diggers at World of Concrete. The 803 is a 0.8-ton mini ex designed for digging and demolition applications in tight spaces, engineered with a telescopic undercarriage that can extend from 27.5 to 34 in., rubber tracks ideal for driving on interior floors and a unique, foldable ROPS design that has an optional debris guard between the work-group and operator station.
Sticking with destruction, Chicago Pneumatic announced the launch of the RX 30 and RX 38, the newest additions to the innovative RX line of rig-mounted, heavy hydraulic breakers for various tool carriers. As is the case with all breakers in the RX Series, the RX 30 and RX 38 feature an awesomely innovative hybrid gas/oil technology that captures damaging percussive forces and drastically lowers maintenance. Also incorporated in the RX line of rig-mounted hydraulic breakers are noise and vibration dampening technology and an internal control valve making the RX breakers some of the quietest and most powerful on the market today.
These types of products are impressive. Take John Deere’s new E-Series line of skid steer and compact track loaders for instance — which (yes) have Interim Tier Four or Final Tier Four engines — but are also one of the finest examples of customer-driven product development the John Deere Commercial Worksite Products has produced (engineered with amongst other things a brand new boom lifting design, low-effort electro-hydraulic controls and new courtesy lighting that automatically shuts the machine lights off after operation).
We’ll keep you updated on similar forward-thinking machine makers, as well as this never-ending story on Tier 4 compliant diesel engines.
Keith Gribbins
Managing Editor
kgribbins@benjaminmedia.com
