I'm Josh with Skid Pro. Today we're going to take a look at our vibratory roller.
Normally we start off with build strength, weight. Today we're going to go to a patented technology to the very heart of any vibratory roller, and that is the eccentric shaft that runs the length of the roller and gives it its vibration. Most of the competition runs about a three-inch solid shaft. They put weight on the outside of that shaft to give it its wobble and vibration. The problem with an eccentric shaft that's three inches, that has a lot of deflection, is that wobble is pushed out, and the bearings and the seal take the brunt of that. Think about when you grab a cable and you snap it. The vibration, that wave goes out in a long distance. Now imagine doing that with a hollow steel pipe, a heavy-walled pipe over 25 feet, still won't have hardly any deflection compared to a solid steel shaft. Well, that's what we did with what we call our exciter shaft. It's hollow, it's six inches, and that has very little deflection. In fact, it's reduced deflection by over 90 percent. Additionally, the hollow tube allows for a unique oil mist lubrication system. Overall, we had over a hundred degrees lower internal operating temperature because of the reduced deflection and the oil mist lubrication system. What does this mean to you as the operator? The number one complaint with skid steer-mounted vibratory rollers is bearing and seal replacement. That is a lot of cost in lost productivity and downtime. When you look at, on average, bearings and seal kits, you're about seven hundred dollars in parts, roughly 500 in labor, so it's about twelve hundred dollars per occurrence of that happening. Now that doesn't even count the downtime in the middle of the job, renting another unit. When we put everything together, we're probably looking at closer to two thousand dollars per occurrence that this happens. Overall, this patented system, the heart of every vibratory roller, is the reason this unit has the lowest seal and bearing failure rate in the entire industry, bar none. The technology is more expensive, but the end result long term is a lower cost of ownership and an overall lower cost of equipment as well.
Another really cool feature of this roller that helps with productivity and durability is the fact that it's not bi-directional. Oftentimes when we're talking hydraulic attachments, bi-directional is a good thing. But in this case, it's not. A lot of the competition runs bidirectional. That means you have to run your pump forward when you're driving forward, and then when you get to the end, you have to stop, disengage, re-engage backward, and drive backward. That's a huge loss of productivity and time, but it's also incredibly damaging to the long solid eccentric shaft the competition runs, so it really exacerbates the problem of damaging the bearings and the seal. So with ours, it only runs in one direction, but you can go forward or reverse. It does not matter which direction the skid loader is going. So you get to the end, you simply back up, and you just keep going. The drum is always rolling, and the skid steer operator drives whatever direction he needs.
Now that we've talked about the internal components, let's take a look at some of the external features of this vibratory roller. First and foremost, there's the knockdown blade up front. It's about 14 and a half inches tall. It's got a cutting edge on the bottom. It does light grading and material moving, adds a lot of productivity to the job site instead of hooking back and forth in between with a bucket. On top of that, it can work great for backfilling trenches as well, reducing the number of tools we need on the job site. Very handy feature there. Right above the dozer blade, we have the bolt-on scraper bar. This is adjustable and helps keep the drum clean from dirt and debris. Another critical component in long-term durability is the heavy-duty external frame. It adds mass and weight to the unit, which of course helps with vibration and compaction. It ties in a very heavily reinforced knockdown blade all the way to the back of the roller. It's a key in what gives this unit such fantastic performance. An additional benefit to the heavy-duty frame is hydraulic component protection, namely the motor. Most of the competition puts the motor on the outside of the frame, leaving it susceptible to damage or hitting obstacles. By putting the motor completely inside the heavy-duty frame, we have nothing to hit to damage the motor, and we can get right next to obstacles at all times. The hydraulic hoses are also protected, all running inside the heavy-duty frame.
One feature that really sets this roller apart is the iso rubber shock mount. We have six extra-large rubber shock mounts that isolate the vibration and the drum from the frame. These four and a half inch wide, one and a half inch thick rubber shock mounts keep the vibration where it should be, down in the dirt, not transferring it back to the operator and the skid loader. By doing this, we have significantly lower operator fatigue, and we also have less wear and tear on the machine.
We've talked a lot today about durability, performance, but one thing we haven't touched on quite yet is actual compaction performance, and clearly, that's still one of the most critical aspects of any vibratory roller. Now for years, it's always been measured with centrifugal force. The problem is that's not the whole story. Imagine taking a steel nut tied to a string and whipping it
around. Imagine taking a two-ounce nut and a 16-ounce nut. Now imagine slamming those at full speed into sheet metal. They both can have the same centrifugal force, yet one is going to give a much bigger dent in the sheet metal. Well, that's the true performance that we're talking about when it comes to a roller, delivering centrifugal force into the ground. That is technically called amplitude. It takes into account vibrations per minute, which is about 3,000 on this. It takes into account physical weight up to 2,500 pounds and the centrifugal force, which is also industry-leading at nearly 10,000 pounds. So when you combine all those together, the amplitude output on this unit is class-leading. And that's why we get not only the durability but exceptional vibration compaction performance as well.
The vibratory rollers come in either 73 or 84-inch working width, and they come in a smooth or a padded drum. This smooth drum is designed for less cohesive soils such as class 5 gravel backfill and dirt, and the padded drum is designed for more cohesive, high clay content soils.
For more information on our vibratory rollers or any of our other industry-leading attachments, visit us online at www.skidpro.com.
