Komatsu launches upgraded bogie lift. Komatsu Forest has several options that facilitate workdays in the forest and that also contribute to increased profitability. The bogie lift is a forwarder option that has been available for more than 20 years and that is very popular, mainly in southern Sweden and Germany.
The bogie lift function is available for the Komatsu 835 and Komatsu 845 forwarders, and is a practical function in several different contexts. An important application area is when operating on roads between felling sites. Chains are often used to prevent skidding, but because these can damage road surfaces, they must be removed prior to road operation between felling objects. With forwarders in southern Sweden, for example, conducting between 70–80 machine movements each year, it is costly to spend so much time mounting and removing chains. With the bogie lift, the chains can be mounted on the rear wheels of the front bogie and the wheel pair easily lifted during transport. This brings increased productivity and consequently increased profitability for the machine operator.
Another application area is when driving in steep terrain down to the landing. As the hill levels off, there is a risk of the machine’s nose scraping the ground, but with the bogie lift it is easy to compensate for this and lift the nose until the entire front section has come down on flat ground.
Demand has been substantial for the bogie lift being available as an option on more forwarder models. Now that the bogie lift is being launched as an option on the Komatsu 855, it will be with another very eagerly awaited function – individual bogie lift. The new function entails that the right and left bogie can be individually controlled, something that gives the forwarder very good manoeuvrability when obstacles are encountered.
