Cutting a fine line with Simex

The Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer has been designed to ensure a consistent planing experience.

Simex’s PL 45.20 High Power Planer is providing a consistent solution for industrial and commercial planing projects. Roads & Infrastructure discovers the key features of the attachment which are helping operators maximise their production.

Operating across the Yorke Peninsula, as well as the rest of South Australia, Geoff Wilde Earthmoving has become an established name in the state’s civil and earthworks industry.

Geoff Wilde, Founder and Director of the business, says reliable service has become the cornerstone for success for the company.

“We have a strong domestic client base whom we serve with general earthmoving services including house/shed pads or foundations, retaining walls, septic tank installations, bulk water carting, house demolition, as well as several housing subdivision builds,” he says.

“Our main business opportunities are linked with local and state government works. We support SA Power Networks and SA Water with various infrastructure requirements. We also have a good relationship with local councils for building roads, crossings and more.”

As part of sustaining the reliability of his operations, Wilde enlists the use of robust and dependable machinery, ensuring that downtime can be reduced, and efficiency can be boosted.

He says the need for a product such as Simex’s PL 45.20 High Power Planer was highlighted before undertaking additional subdivision project.

“Through the subdivision works, deep trenching for sewers is often needed. For many projects in our area, we have to deal with limestone rock. Previously, the traditional solution for this has been using larger machinery, which are expensive to hire or buy and fairly limited in capability,” he says.

“After crunching the numbers before starting a particular subdivision job, we saw potential problems using traditional machines.”

Wilde says through consulting with his contacts within the industry, he decided to purchase the Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer.

“I reached out to some people in the industry, and some mentioned that they had heard of the Simex products. I got in contact with them, and within a few weeks, we had the PL45 operating on our Komatsu PC 200-7 excavator,” he says.

The Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer features a unique self-levelling system.

Controlled power

With a professional relationship which has lasted longer than 20 years, Renex Equipment – authorised dealer for Simex products in South Australia – has serviced and supported the product needs of Geoff Wilde Earthmoving.

Renex Equipment Manager Daniel Drew says the Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer has been designed to deliver larger workloads and cuts, while retaining the compact size of the attachment.

“The high-power version of the Simex planer is suitable for the latest generation of HighFlow Skid Steers, which have higher flows from the auxiliary circuit,” he says.

As Drew explains, the Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer consists of two “standout” features.

“Firstly, the Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer has an in-built tank in the hook-up plate. Simex is the only manufacturer in the world to do that,” he says.

“The machine is a lot more stable by having the tank on the loader arms, rather than on the roof of a machine. This also makes the tank easier to fill up, since you don’t require as many points of contact to access the tank. Operators can access the tank from the ground.”

Drew adds that the second standout feature is providing the operator with real-time data, meaning users can have confidence that they are optimising the performance of the attachment.

“The Optimiser – or Performer – is a performance instrument attached to the planer, which gives the operator in the cabin information regarding the performance of the product. This data is focused on the key torque range and power range for the planer and operates off pressure,” he says.

For example, at a depth of 200 millimetres (the maximum planing depth of the PL 45.20 with reduced width), an operator is unable to simply plane at that depth. They must first taper that depth by doing one or two passes with the planer. The Optimiser will indicate the ideal depth for tapering, ensuring the operator achieves maximum performance.”

A host of other features come as standard on the Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer.

This includes the standard self-levelling system. By allowing the lateral slides of the planer to automatically adjust to the milling surface, the feature enables the planer to have maximum stability for passes with its 450-millimetre standard drum.

Operators of the Simex PL 45.20 High Power Planer are also provided with a selection of customisable options, depending on the application.

“Operators can change between profiling teeth types. This allows flexibility for operators when switching between jobs such as asphalt work, concrete work or simply resurfacing,” says Drew.

Wilde says he has been impressed with the product’s performance.

“It’s a versatile, high productivity unit for relatively low cost. So after saving tens of thousands of dollars and paying for itself on the first job, we’ve been able to use it for a lot of our domestic works, with better results than using rock breakers,” he says.

“It doesn’t have the brute force of a rock breaker and can be used with high precision.”

He says the initial impression of the machine has also persuaded the company to contemplate an additional purchase.

“The PL45 is ready to go from our depot to support our domestic operations all the time. We would buy another with no hesitation should our works’ demands increase,” he says.

This article was originally published in the March edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.