You little Kiwi beauty
EASY TO SEE EWEN SATHERLEY’S influence in this new Volvo EC380DL. Only a Kiwi logger (or ex-logger in this case) would insist on things like the Swiss Cheese effect in the ram guard so you can see through it to where your right-hand drive track is. And other things, like the corner box and the siting of the cab, being pushed back further, rather than being proud. It takes an operator’s insight to get these details right.
They add a bit more spice to what is already a very impressive machine.
There’s lots to like. It’s smooth and really responsive, has heaps of power, even running it in the G mode.
It’s got a lot of track power with those 50-tonne drive motors in it, so it doesn’t struggle at all. Visibility on the track is awesome, too.
It’s definitely stable on that big track gear. With the big counterweight it does sit back a bit, but you don’t really feel it, because it balances the head weight. Without that counterweight the machine wouldn’t be as stable. It’s more than capable of handling the bigger Douglas-firs they are working with.
Inside the cab, everything is at arm’s reach, real comfy seat, very good visibility, A/C is good, stereo is good and all the switchgear is easy to locate and use. The computer screen for the processor is in a good spot, just out of the main sight line where you can still see it, but it doesn’t interfere with the view. And maybe Mike is right about that bar in front of the screen, as it was handy to put my feet on when cutting big piles.
The SATCO controls are a bit different to a Waratah. When I jumped on I thought ‘Oh there’s a few buttons missing, I’m going to have to get used to something new all over again,’ but it didn’t take long to learn and get into a good work flow. On the left-hand side at the top is harvest-down and harvest up, then two steer buttons, then your main saw and topping saw toggle below that. On the right-hand side is the optimiser with increase length/decrease length and feed back and feed forward. And then the rest is just your grade buttons. Basic, but very operator friendly. Then the normal controls for the machine itself.
I did have to override the optimiser sometimes, just because of the nature of the wood, some were really bent and ugly, but if they were all uniform stems you wouldn’t have to touch it much. I was only cutting two lengths, and mostly 4s, so not much to worry about.
There’s plenty of power across the whole machine, especially in the slew. It only bogged down a little bit when I got a couple of those big stems in the harvester, which you would expect, but no more than any other machine I’ve operated. It would be hard to have it set up perfect for the range of wood Mike has to deal with, because if you have a short SED you want to feed in fast and that wouldn’t work for a larger log.
I kept it in the top range of G mode, the general work setting, and that was enough. I didn’t need to put it into high horsepower mode, because Mike said I wouldn’t need it. Having said that, it would be really interesting to see what that machine is capable of if it was put into full power mode to work on a big pile. But that would spoil the very impressive fuel economy.
Even though it’s got the standard Volvo boom and arm the reach is good for the type of work it’s doing and there’s enough lift.
This is the first SATCO I’ve operated and for the size, it’s very light, with the valve bank down inside the boom, which makes it pretty nimble. Both saws are fast and I was especially impressed with the topping saw. Very impressed, too, with how the head handles bent wood – because the knives are so close to the roller it can get around the bends and doesn’t have a tendency to jamb.
Another thing I like are the side and rear cameras. Being able to see pass the blind spots in those tight gullies is very handy.
NZL