ACI Excavations has a reputation for being early adopters of cutting-edge technology, and so it was no surprise that when the company purchased its latest piece of machinery, a 220x series excavator from JCB CEA, they paired it with Topcon’s new X-53x auto excavator system from Position Partners.
“We go back a long way with Topcon technology, lasers and integrated systems with rotating lasers,” said Peter Stadelbauer, Owner, ACI Excavations. “You have to be one step ahead of the opposition, if you’re not, you run last.”
Why did ACI Excavations choose technology from Position Partners?
ACI Excavations has a long-standing relationship with Position Partners and Topcon technology that goes back more than 30 years. When the Topcon X-53x auto excavator was released, Mr Stadelbauer was eager to install the technology on his newest excavator.
“Most people in my industry understand that getting qualified, confident operators is very hard these days. We put three different operators in the machine to test the new system, and all these guys are competent – I just wanted to find out what their thoughts were,” said Mr Stadelbauer.
“Someone whom I would class as a top tier operator didn’t mind it and was sort of nonplussed about it. The two other guys loved it: one was putting topsoil on a batter with the blade and he said that it picked up productivity by 20 per cent and he didn’t have to worry about re-checking his work, he could see that it was uniform.”
How does ACI Excavations find the JCB machines work with the Position Partners technology?
Mr Stadelbauer has found the Topcon X-53x auto excavator system from Position Partners and the 220x series excavator from JCB CEA work together seamlessly. One of the features of the X-53x auto excavator system that stood out to Mr Stadelbauer is the joysticks.
“You have to change the joysticks from the joysticks supplied by the machine manufacturer. They’re removed and Topcon put their own joysticks on. Which makes it so much easier because there’s probably three functions that the operator doesn’t have to take his hands off the joysticks to change settings on the touch screen, where he can actually do it off the joystick. He can [check?] his elevation and other things like that,” said Mr Stadelbauer.
Mr Deon Cope, National Product Manager, JCB CEA has known Mr Stadelbauer for many years and noted that he was not only an early adopter of the auto excavator technology, but also was one of the first to run Topcon GPS and runs this technology on all his JCB CEA machines.
“Peter was the first to order the new 220x next generation machine from JCB, this excavator has significant change from the previous JS model, there’s been significant improvement and changes to the machine and the hydraulics of the engine,” said Mr Cope.
Mr Cope also noted that the 220x series excavator and X-53x auto excavator system worked as seamlessly together as the teams at Position Partners and JCB CEA when it came to setting up the machine for ACI Excavations.
“We’re big believers of layering 2D and 3D machine control systems on local machines, rather than factory fitted systems,” Mr Cope said. “We’re the experts in the machines and Position Partners is the expert in these systems and it makes sense to lean on that support.”.
“Peter came to us and said he wanted to implement the auto excavator system and we’d never seen the system before, so we gave JCB in Europe a call and they said that this Topcon system had been successful on our machines in Europe so we worked with the Position Partners team to make it happen!”
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